


Peter’s One Man Crusade

by MamaBear7319



Series: The Happier, Friendlier Timeline (2014) [2]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Hydra’s trying to take over the world, I don’t get tagging, Irondad, Trouble always finds Peter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-02
Updated: 2020-10-08
Packaged: 2021-03-07 16:48:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 20
Words: 32,426
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26770918
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MamaBear7319/pseuds/MamaBear7319
Summary: After a classmate is arrested for drugs, Peter goes on a crusade to clean up Queens.  His One Man Crusade turns into an Avenger level threat.
Series: The Happier, Friendlier Timeline (2014) [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1934734
Comments: 29
Kudos: 38





	1. Chapter 1

Peter landed on the roof of a warehouse. The part of Queens he was in was rapidly becoming a drug haven despite the police upping patrols. It was a little further out than he normally roamed but there had been a couple overdoses in the last couple weeks and then a kid at school had been busted with drugs...at school. He was determined to do something about it. He knew he couldn't single-handedly put an end to all of the drug deals but he could make a dent in it.

He walked to the edge of the roof and looked down at a lone individual walking into the alley. He didn't understand the allure of drugs. He didn't understand what could possibly drive a seemingly normal person into a seedy part of town and meet with an even seedier person to give them money for something that could kill them.

He had spent the last couple weeks "encouraging" people in search of drugs to leave the area. Most of them ran when he landed in front of them. Not all of them. He had walked with two of them to a drug rehabilitation clinic located a couple blocks away. It was those two that gave him confirmation that he was having an impact. The ones that would run away, most of the time he saw them again. Sometimes that same night, sometimes a couple days later.

He jumped off the roof and landed a couple feet in front of his newest quarry. "Hey! You know it's not safe down here."

As was typical more often than not, the man took off running in the opposite direction. Peter watched the mans’ back disappear around the corner. He heard a door open towards the end of the alley to his left. The alley where he figured this particular drug deal would have taken place.

"Spider-Man, you're bad for business." Three thugs, because that was the only description for them, stepped out of the shadows of the alley.

"And you're bad for Queens." Peter quickly took in as much as he could about the three. All of them were carrying weapons. Handguns in waistbands, some kind of stick, maybe a pipe, in their hands. Flinging two webs, he hit two of the men, covering their hands with webs. He immediately followed with taser webs stunning them. Unfortunately that meant that the one in the middle was left free to attack. Peter felt it coming but couldn't do much about it since he was wrapped up with the other two. He felt the pipe slam into his shoulder. "That's going to leave a bruise". Using the momentum of the hit to his advantage he tucked into a roll to move away from his attacker. The taser web he fired just glanced off his attacker's arm delivering what was probably no more than a sting. He flipped up and continued battling his foe, who was a little more skilled than a run of the mill thug. The next time the pipe was swung at him, he caught it and shoved it back into the face of his component. The man stumbled back, dazed. That gave Peter enough of an opening to web him up.

"Karen, call the police. Tell them they have a package to pick up." Peter looked around he empty street and made sure the three thugs were securely webbed before swinging back up to the rooftops. Landing, he turned to look back down at the empty alleyway. Something was setting his spidey sense off. But not too bad. Just enough to tell him someone was lurking in the shadows. Rubbing his arm where the pipe had landed he realized it was sore. It didn't feel broken though. But, he knew swinging home was going to hurt like hell. And he knew waiting wasn't going to make it feel any better. He shot a web to the nearest building and started making his way home. It was almost curfew anyway.

XXXXXXXXXX

MJ handed Peter a protein bar when she saw him the next morning. He was grateful. He had grabbed a banana this morning on they way out the door and regretted it immediately. He had overslept and barely made the train. He was starving. And tired. He figured his arm was bruised worse than he thought last night. It still ached a little bit. But, it hadn't been bad enough to warrant a call or a text from Mr. Stark so it couldn't have been too bad.

"Are you still on your one man crusade to end drugs in Queens?" MJ watched him shove the last bite into his mouth.

Swallowing, he shook his head. "You make it sound like I'm being irrational. You don't like the idea of drugs in our school any more than I do."

"You're right. I don't. But I also don't like the idea of people trying to kill you either. Before, you just pissed bad guys off. Those guys were looking for you last night. Did you tell Stark?" MJ crossed her arms and watched Peter. Of course he hadn't told Stark.

"It's a little below his pay grade. It's fine. I can handle them." He leaned over and whispered in her ear "I'm Spider-Man." Grinning, he ignored the eye roll and gave her a quick kiss on the cheek before heading to class.

XXXXXXXXXX

Peter resumed his normal rooftop stakeout. Since the run in a couple days ago no one had challenged his interventions. He was hoping that meant they had packed up and moved on. But, he knew that was probably wishful thinking. He couldn't be that lucky. His spidey sense had been like a low siren all night. Not screaming at him that his life was in danger. More like something was about to happen. He watched a group of people head towards the familiar alley. He looked around to see if anyone was going to exit the alley to meet them. Not seeing anyone, he leapt off the roof and landed about ten feet in front of the group. "Hey guys! I think they're closed today."

The four people headed toward the alley didn't run like most did. The one in the front lifted his face to Peter. "Hey Spider-Man, miss me?"

Peter looked at the guy that had wielded the pipe the other night. Throwing web grenades he jumped on top of a light post. "Why aren't you in jail?" He checked the status of each attacker and threw another web grenade to completely wrap up two of the guys. He focused on the remaining two until he heard the alley door opening. Looking over his shoulder he saw four more guys coming out of the building. Flinging a web towards the two in front of him he hit one, missed one. The one he missed now had a gun in his hands as did the four that had just joined the fight.

He shot webs in both directions, hitting about half his targets. A bullet sped past his head, the high pitch squeal reaching his ears. The bullet impacted on the wall behind him just before a volley of other shots rang out. He rolled low avoiding what he thought was all of them until he felt white hot pain tearing across his arm. He flung taser webs at the man closest to him securing him to a wall. He stood up ready to fire additional webs.

"Spider-Man, you're not getting out of this alley alive." The three thugs advanced toward Peter, more interested in taking their frustrations out on him before killing him.

"It's a good thing the Spider has friends then."

Peter watched a black clad figure deliver a blow to the neck of one of the attackers instantly dropping him to the ground. It was followed up by a well placed kick to the midsection of one of the other thugs. Peter took the opportunity to web up the remaining free attacker as well as the one that had been knocked unconscious by his new friend. He watched as the last attacker was taken down swiftly. The black clad figure stood and turned toward Peter and he found himself staring into Natasha Romanoff's eyes.


	2. Stitches

"What do you say we find somewhere a little less grimy to look at your arm?" Natasha walked determinedly towards Peter. She hadn't been planning on jumping into the fray unless she needed to. The kid handled himself ok but that many guys with guns was bound to end badly.

“What? Oh, right." He reached up and touched his arm where the bullet had grazed him. He didn't think the bullet was lodged in his arm but it sure hurt.

"Can you manage to not bleed all over my car?" Natasha stood in front of Peter and looked at the blood seeping through the fabric of his suit.

Peter aimed his web shooter at his arm and covered the wound. He heard Karen's voice softly in his ear. "Peter, Mr. Stark asked me to tell you to take Ms. Romanoff to the safe house and that he'll meet you there." Baby Monitor Protocol. Great. Peter wondered how much of the fight Mr. Stark watched.

Natasha watched Peter seal up the wound. "That's handy, think Stark can adapt one for me? It would be useful in the field."

"Maybe. Did you actually park around here?" Peter stared at the abandoned street, not seeing a vehicle.

"I'm a block over. Can you make it or do I need to get the car and pick you up." Natasha looked at Spider-Man with a practiced eye. She didn't think he had lost a lot of blood but it was hard to tell with the suit.  
"I'll be fine." Peter stepped back and waited for her to lead the way. His arm hurt. He could feel it starting to heal but it didn't make it hurt less. He thought it was probably enough of an opening that he'd end up with a stitch or two to hold it together until tomorrow. Which sucked even more. He followed her to a non-descript black sports car. "Mr. Stark said to take you to the safe house. He's on his way."

Natasha pulled away from the curve. "Parker, you have a safe house?" There was a tone of disbelief in her voice.

"Mr. Stark has a safe house." Peter corrected, outwardly ignoring the fact that she knew who he was as he directed her to the building and had Karen trigger the underground parking access. Once safely in the building, Peter pulled his mask off. "Why do you know who I am? The secret identity thing is supposed to be...you know...secret."

Natasha shrugged. "I'm a spy. Finding out secret identities is kind of what I do. Don't worry, I've known since Germany and haven't outed you yet." She winked at Peter, "Us spiders need to stick together." She pulled up the freight elevator door and waited for him to join her before pulling it back down.

Riding it up to the top floor, Peter was not surprised in the least that Mr. Stark was already there.

"Ok, let's see it." Tony stood in front of Peter and waited for him to tap the spider emblem to release the suit. Tony helped Peter ease his arm out of the sleeve and he inspected the wound that started bleeding again the second the pressure from the suit and webs was released. "You need a couple stitches and Dr. Cho's IV cocktail." He pushed a sterile pad onto Peter's arm and waited for Peter to replace his hand with his own.

Peter grumbled under his breath and headed over to the scaled down MedBay. Sitting in the chair, he put his good arm down long enough to let the auto IV insert. Resuming his hold on the wound he watched Mr. Stark and Ms. Romanoff. They were talking low but not so low that he couldn't pick up what they were saying.

"What are you doing Nat?" Tony crossed his arms and studied Natasha. Steve has said she was in New York but he was surprised she had revealed herself. He figured she would have flown far under the radar.

"Looking for aliens. Fury thinks there's probably more of them." Natasha took in everything around her. A lot had changed since Germany and it all seemed to center around a certain spider.

"How'd you end up mixed up in Peter's crusade against drug dealers in Queens." Out of all of them, Tony probably trusted Natasha the most. He just wasn't expecting to be faced with any of them back in the mix so soon.

"Right place at the right time." Natasha paused and looked at Tony. "I'm not a threat to him." She was offering him a reassurance that he obviously needed.

Tony dismissed the comment and walked towards Peter. "Ready for stitches?"

"No." Peter knew the response wasn't going to get him anywhere.

"Then don't get shot." Tony grabbed a sterilized kit and opened it on the table next to Peter.

Natasha reached in front of Tony and picked up the curved needle. "Why don't I stitch him up. If I remember correctly, you tend to pull more than you should." She slid in front of Tony and sat on the stool next to Peter. She smiled at Peter as she pulled the sterile bandage back. She glanced up at Tony. "I'm assuming lidocaine does no good?"

Peter answered, "It makes my skin crawl and really doesn't help. We haven't found a replacement. Just do it and get it over with." Peter leaned his head back and closed his eyes. He felt the needle but Natasha was right she had a much lighter touch than Tony did. Three quick stitches later he heard an "all done". Looking down at his arm he watched Natasha wrap a bandage around and secure it. "Thanks." He still had at least another 20 minutes that he had to be hooked up to the IV. "So have you found the aliens?"

Natasha filed away 'enhanced hearing' and looked between Peter and Tony. "No. Have you?"

Peter shook his head. "But the data we got only gives us about a 43% success rate on scanning. Even their weapons didn't register until they charged."

"What did you find out from Fury?" Tony pulled another stool over and sat next to Peter.

Natasha turned her attention to Tony. "He's known about both species since the mid '90's." She paused and waited for the shock to wear off. "I know. We thought the Attack on New York was the first actual incursion but apparently there was some kind of incident involving both species. Small scale obviously, but still...would have been nice to know earlier."

"Interesting that he kept it off book. There's nothing in the files I skimmed from the Helicarrier and there was nothing in the files you dumped during that mess with Hydra." Tony made a mental note to check the files specifically during the 90's to see what he could find that might not have been scrubbed.

"Yeah, there's more to the 90's incident than he's letting on. I did find out a little bit about both species. The shapeshifters are a species being eradicated by the other group, the Kree."

Peter frowned at the word 'eradicated'. "So the shapeshifters, the Skrulls? They're the good guys?" It lined up with what he saw. The Kree were definitely chasing the Skrulls.

Natasha shrugged, "I think they're kind of like humans in that there are some good Skrulls and some bad Skrulls. The threat assessment on the Skrulls indicated that they're not above getting rid of a population just so they can move in."

"Ok, so we treat all of them as hostiles." Tony watched Peter's face as he processed what Natasha had said about the aliens. "Kiddo, when the IV is done, change and I'll borrow Natasha's car and take you home." He could tell Peter was almost to the point of crashing. It was something he had picked up on the first couple times he had gotten minor injuries. The adrenaline from a battle kept him hyper alert but when the adrenaline wore off and his body started triaging wounds, he crashed fast.

XXXXXXXXXX

Peter slid back into the passenger seat of Natasha's car and relaxed into the seat. At this point he really just wanted to crawl into bed.

Tony glanced over at Peter as they exited the underground parking. "You know you're done intimidating drug dealers, right."

"I was making progress."

"They tried to kill you. You're done." Tony wondered how much push back he was going to get.

"Fine. I will no longer stake out the alley." Peter's tone was short. He knew he was taking it out on Mr. Stark unfairly but part of him felt like he was being treated like a kid.

Tony inwardly sighed. He was becoming familiar with the tone. Tired, hurt teenager equaled cranky, testy, irrational teenager. "Go back to tracking down muggers and stopping bank robberies. You did a lot of good combating drugs in the neighborhood. You caused them enough of a headache that they'll think twice about continuing. But you have to know when to change tactics. You can't go back to the alley."

"I got it. I won't go back to the alley." Peter took a deep breath and looked over at Mr. Stark. "Sorry. I'm tired."

"I know. Look, I'll take your suit with me and do the repairs on it so you can have it back Wednesday. Ok?"

Peter nodded and stared out the window. He wasn't sure why he was in such a bad mood. "Do you think Ms. Romanoff is going to stay in town?"

"Probably. We're close to having the accords in a final form. Once they're amended the pardons will be automatic." Tony glances at Peter again to try to gauge how he was taking the conversation. "It'll be good to have someone besides me to call for help."

Peter shrugged. "I like having you as backup."

Tony smiled. "Good. Because you're not getting rid of me that easy. But, it makes me feel better knowing Nat is in the same city." Tony pulled to a stop outside Peter's apartment building. "I'll call you tomorrow after school to check on your arm but if you need me sooner, call me. Got it?"

Peter nodded and got out of the car. "Thanks Mr. Stark."

Tony watched Peter walk up the stairs of the building and open the door. He wondered how long the kid was going to call him Mr Stark.

XXXXXXXXXX

Tony walked back into the main area of the safe house to see Natasha sitting in a chair looking at a tablet. "Are you planning on sticking around?"

"I thought I would. I hear you're close to getting the accords wrapped up. Don't want to have to travel too far if I'm just coming back here."

Tony smiled. "Good. Will you keep an eye on him? He said he wouldn't go back to stake out the alley."

"But..."

"But that that just means he'll attack it from a different angle. He doesn't give up." Tony frowned. It was both an admirable quality as well as an incredibly frustrating one.

"I'll keep an eye on him." Natasha smiled at Tony. "You know, he's good for you."

Tony dismissed the comment. "Where are you staying?"

"Around."

"Stay here. You'll be close by and you'll have access to everything. Karen, Natasha Romanoff has full access to the facilities and is now included as an additional contact for all of Peter's protocols."

"Natasha Romanoff has been added to all sub-routines. Welcome Agent Romanoff." Karen's soft voice echoed from the ceiling.

"What happened to FRIDAY?" Natasha frowned at the ceiling.

"She's still here. FRIDAY, say hello." Tony grinned at Natasha's confusion.

"Hello Agent Romanoff. As Peter's AI, Karen has priority placement in anything related to Peter although Mr. Stark and I have override capability."

Natasha chuckled, "You gave him an AI?"

"Bedrooms are a floor down as is a small kitchen. I don't think Peter's even explored it yet. No wild parties." Tony grinned as he triggered the Iron Man suit. "I'm going back to the compound. Let me know if you need anything."


	3. The Manfredi Crime Family

Peter glanced at his text messages as he sat down at his desk in English Lit. Part of him was glad Ms. Romanoff was in town but he also realized it was another adult in his life involved in Spider-Man. Although he did get the impression her involvement was definitely going to be different than Mr. Stark's. The text message from his mentor awaiting him when he woke up was full of 'how's your arm' and 'make sure you eat because you know you need the calories to heal'. He had come to appreciate those texts and even expect them. The texts from Ms. Romanoff were also checking up on his arm but offered an update on his drug dealers. She had apparently returned last night to see if there was any activity which there was none. And then she ended her text with a spider emoji. He was pretty sure Mr. Stark had never used an emoji in his life. And he was left trying to figure out why she had dangled the drug dealer update. He figured Mr. Stark probably knew he wasn't going to let it go. He'd keep his word and not return to that particular alley but he definitely wasn't just going to forget about it.

Which brought him to the other string of text messages. The ones from MJ. Somehow she knew he had been hurt last night. It's like she had her own spidey sense. When she found out he'd been shot, there was a mixture of worry and awe. It wasn't everyday you could have a casual conversation about getting shot like it was no big deal...which was exactly what it was - no big deal.

He saw another message pop up from MJ. _"You're not still making web fluid in chem lab, right?"_

Peter frowned and typed out a quick _"No. Just at the compound"_

_"Good. Police are here searching. The kid they busted was making some kind of designer drug in chem lab."_

Peter had a brief moment of panic trying to remember if he had gotten all traces out. Any of the residue would have dissolved by now. _”Should be ok. It's been a couple months."_

By the time lunch rolled around, the police searching the chem lab was all anyone was talking about. Of course the story had also grown to crazy proportions. One version was that it wasn't just one kid, it was an entire drug ring being run out of the school. Another one had the Russian mob involved. Ned recounted all of the stories he had heard throughout the morning.

"It's ridiculous. I was in chemistry when it happened." MJ ate a spoonful of macaroni and cheese. "Two officers and a drug dog. It was over in five minutes."

Peter shook his head. "Who would use the school chem lab for something like that."

MJ snickered, "You would. The only difference is that you have this whole good guy complex."

Peter feigned a hurt look. He was about to launch into all the reasons why web fluid was different when Ned interrupted. "So what's Black Widow like?"

Peter looked between MJ and Ned. "Kind of what you'd expect. Does stitches better than Mr. Stark does. Oh, and she liked the medical webs. Thought they'd be useful in the field."

"How'd they work?" MJ leaned in. After using regular webbing on Peter when he’d been stabbed, he had tweaked the formula to include an antibiotic and something to help stop bleeding. 

"It worked great until I released the suit, which theoretically I wouldn't do unless I was getting medical attention." Peter thought through the various changes he could make to the formula. He enjoyed messing around with it to see what he could get it to do.

"So now that Black Widow is back, are the rest of them going to come back?" Ned leaned forward making sure no one could hear their hushed voices.

"Not until the accords are amended. I think Ms. Romanoff is back because of the aliens." Peter played with his food until MJ reached over and grabbed one of his French fries.

"Are they coming back? Even though SHIELD tried to cover it up, the fall out between them was pretty epic." MJ shoved the fry into her mouth.

"Yeah. I was there for most of it, remember?" Peter reached over to MJ's plate and grabbed her brownie. "Mr. Stark asked me about it. He said the compound would be a little more crowded but I'd have more people to train with. After the run in with the aliens, it's kind of nice to know there's someone else close by." Peter frowned as the realization hit him. "There's no way I could have taken them down myself."

MJ reached over and grabbed his hand under the table. "Back up isn't a bad thing. If you remember, when the aliens were here before, it took all of them and they destroyed half of Manhattan."

Ned nodded in agreement. "And, Mr. Stark did bring you in for backup in Germany. Stop thinking you can handle everything yourself."

Peter knew they were trying to help and they were making really logical arguments. It really was pretty cool to fight with Black Widow last night, even though that portion of the fight only lasted about 30 seconds. But he thought back to Germany. He'd grabbed Captain America's shield and the man had dropped a jet bridge on top of him. Plus the whole mysterious thing that had happened after Germany that he still didn't know anything about. All he knew was that there had been another fight. The bell rang pulling him out of his head.

XXXXXXXXXX

Tony picked Peter up Wednesday after school to head to the compound. "Is your arm completely healed?"

Peter nodded and pulled up his sleeve to show the wound free skin. "Were you able to repair the suit?"

"Suit is done."

"Thank you! Last night was miserable not being able to go out. But, I did tweak the medical web formula." Peter pulled a notebook out of his backpack. "Ms. Romanoff asked if I thought you could adapt them for her. Doesn't she have wrist gauntlets? I think with the changes, the formula could be used outside of the web shooters. You might even be able to use them with the Iron Man suit." Peter looked over at Mr. Stark, unsure of how he would take the idea.

"Pete, that's a great idea. We can look at the schematics for her gauntlets when we get to the lab. If we can also adapt for the Iron Man armor we can add it to Rhodey's suit as well." Tony was actually surprised he hadn't thought of it earlier.

Peter grinned at Mr. Stark's response. They spent the entire drive discussing the mechanism they could use in both the Iron Man gauntlets as well as in Black Widow's gauntlets. By the time they got to the compound they had a pretty good idea what they wanted to do. Tony pulled out the last prototype of Natasha's gauntlets and they started tweaking what was there. They even made improvements to the electroshock mechanisms. The changes didn't take that long to make and they had working gauntlets by the time Peter had to leave to head back.

XXXXXXXXXX

Tony pulled into the safe houses’ underground parking. If Natasha wasn't there they'd just leave the gauntlets for her and Peter could change into his suit and leave from the safe house. The freight elevator stopped at the main common area. Natasha was sitting at the table looking at a tablet.

"What's up boys?"

Tony put the case he was carrying on the table and opened it. "We brought you a present."

Natasha reached in and picked up one of the gauntlets. Slipping it on her wrist she flipped through the settings. "It's more streamlined than the other ones."

Peter reached over and pushed a button. A spray of white came out covering the palm of his hand. "Medical webs."

Natasha pulled his hand up to examine the webbing that had formed a thin layer over Peter's hand. "Peter, this is amazing."

"Thanks. MJ deserves some of the credit. It was her original idea. I just came up with the formula." Peter stepped back and started pulling webbing off his hand. "I'm going to change."

Natasha watched Peter head off to change. "Tony, he's like a mini you."

"I'm hoping he's better than me."

Natasha smirked at the pride in Tony's voice. "Alley is abandoned. I checked it again earlier tonight. Where do you think he'll look next?"

"I have no idea. He has the habit of finding trouble though. Karen will send out an SOS if he comes across something he needs help on. I changed the protocol to automatic instead of a phone call. Karen will just give you the coordinates. I'll get the same message but it takes me time to get there." Tony kept an eye on the door Peter had disappeared through.

"You got to the alien incident pretty quickly." Natasha had watched Karen and FRIDAY's feeds earlier.

"I also fried a thruster. If I had been forced to stay in the air during the fight it wouldn't have gone well." He took his eyes off the door and looked at Natasha. "Anything new on our alien friends?"

Natasha shook her head. "Being able to watch the feeds helped. I have a couple ideas on where to look. Based on what I've gotten out of Fury, the Skrulls could be in a group of anywhere between the 3 you and Peter stopped to a group of about 10. The Kree definitely travel in a bigger group. Probably 5 to 7, so the current theory is that there are definitely more here."

Tony frowned. He didn't like the idea of aliens running free in New York, especially when they didn't know why they were there. "FRIDAY is scanning where she can and Karen is scanning when Peter's out. Both of them will let us know if they find something."

Peter walked back into the common area, mask in hand. "I'm headed out. I promise I'll stay away from the alley."

Tony smirked. "Curfew is midnight. I'll drop your backpack at the apartment. Call if you need help." Tony thought he detected an eye roll as Peter pulled the mask over his head.

XXXXXXXXXX

Peter swung off the roof of the safe house and was in the heart of Queens within a few minutes. "Got anything for me Karen?"

"911 call on 69th by your school."

"Ok, lets check it out." Peter made good time, landing on the low roof of a building near where the call had originated. "Picking up anything?" He scanned the area himself, not seeing a source.

"Negative. It may have been a false alarm. The cruiser that had been headed this way was reassigned. Sorry Peter."

"It's ok, lets look around anyway." Peter swung over to an adjoining building that provided him a look down the main street as well as some of the side streets. Scanning the area, he saw a dark colored car pull up to the fence behind the school. "Karen, amplify. And run the tag number." After a couple minutes, he heard the rear window roll down and a figure walk out of the shadows.

_”The police were here today. I think they know more than we thought."_

_"Relax, just stick to the plan. Did they get everything out before the police searched?"_

_Yeah, Boss, I just checked. They're looking for another lab. There are a couple options they're looking into."_

_"Good. Keep me posted. We need to get back on schedule."_

The car pulled away and the figure moved back into the shadows and disappeared. "Karen, anything on the tag?"

"The vehicle is registered to Joseph Manfredi."

"Manfredi? Isn't that one of the Maggia families?"

"Yes Peter." Karen paused. "The Maggia have ties to not only organized crime in New York but there have been rumors that certain families are also involved with Hydra. As a reminder, Hydra is something that Mr. Stark considers to be an Avenger level threat and as such he needs to be involved."

"Karen, don't call Mr. Stark. All I did was listen to a conversation and run a car tag. It's almost midnight so I'm headed home anyway. If this ends up being Hydra related, I'll tell Mr. Stark, deal?" Peter distinctly thought he heard Karen sigh. But she must have agreed because she didn't mention calling Mr. Stark again.

XXXXXXXXXX

"So not the Russian mob but the Manfredi crime family." Peter slid into a chair between MJ and Ned in the library during their free period. They usually practiced for decathlon in the library so this particular table in the library was "their" table.

"Seriously? Wait, is that better or worse?" Ned looked between MJ and Peter.

Peter shrugged. MJ shook her head. "That's worse. The Russians just try to kill you. The Manfredi's are part of the Maggia and they're into everything."

"Karen said there's a possibility that they're involved with Hydra too." Peter looked back and forth between MJ and Ned. "All I did was eavesdrop on a conversation."

"Hydra?" Ned hadn't meant for it to come out as a squeak, but Peter had just mentioned Hydra, the evilest organization in the world, causally in conversation. "Like Winter Soldier, take over SHIELD, evil Nazi guys Hydra?"

Peter nodded. MJ narrowed her eyes at him. "You are going to tell Stark, right?"

"What's to tell? If I find out it's somehow tied to Hydra, I'll tell him. Right now, it's just a conversation."

"What did they say?" Ned leaned forward and turned toward Peter so he could hear him better.

"They're looking for a new lab. Haven't found one yet. That's literally the whole conversation." Peter leaned back and looked between the two. Before ether of them could speak, his phone buzzed.

_”Kid, I've got to go to DC for a couple days. Call Nat if you need anything."_

Peter frowned, wondering what was causing the sudden departure. _"Sure thing Mr. Stark. Problems with the Accords?"_

_”The opposite. I think we'll be able to finalize everything. I'll let you know if this drags out until Monday, but I think I should be back Saturday morning."_

__

__

_"Good Luck"_

"Can't tell him anyway. He's headed to DC. Looks like the Accords are getting finalized."


	4. Stakeout

"Karen, can you compile a list of labs in the general area that would work for the Manfredi's? Same or better abilities as the one at school, low security, low traffic." Peter crouched on the same roof he had been on the night before. He really didn't think he'd be lucky enough to catch sight of his quarry again, but he didn't know where else to start. Addresses started popping up on his HUD. "Karen, that's a lot of facilities, what's the closest one to here?" Karen plotted a route and Peter was crouched on another roof top in less than 10 minutes. Looking at the large building he started scanning for entrances. He was about to switch over to thermal imaging to see if anyone was home when Karen interrupted.

"Incoming call from Agent Romanoff." Peter frowned as Ms. Romanoff's face appeared in his HUD.

"Peter, what are you doing at Hammer Industries?"

"I'm not." Peter looked back at the building, adjusting the contrast, he tilted his head and could make out some faint remnants of letters where a sign had been removed. "Huh, ok, maybe I am. It's an abandoned building and on Karen's list of possible replacements for a lab. Are you watching my suit feed?" Peter had assumed that Mr. Stark had asked her to keep an eye on him but it hadn't occurred to him that she would be watching this close.

"I didn't know that was an option." Natasha grinned at the muttered groan from Peter when he realized he had given her the option to tap into his suit feed. "Tony apparently has some places on a 'No Fly List' for you. This building is one of them."

Peter muttered under his breath. He thought he knew about all of the Protocols. Apparently not. It made him wonder what else was in the programming that he didn't know about. "Why would an abandoned building be on the list."

"Because that building has a history. I'll be there in two minutes and you can fill me in."

XXXXXXXXXX

Natasha crouched next to Peter. "See anything?"

Peter shook his head. "No movement that I've been able to see. The building is shielded so infrared isn't giving me much."

"There's also a sub-basement." Natasha had binoculars out.

"So what's the history of this building and why is it on the 'No Fly List'?” Peter looked at the parking entrance again. "There's a small heat signature on the west side parking entrance. Like maybe someone's driven there recently."

Natasha turned her attention to the area Peter had indicated. He had good instincts. He was right about the faint heat signature.

"You're probably too young to remember when the drones attacked the Stark Expo." Natasha didn't expect the stifled laugh from Peter. "What?"

Peter shook his head. "You need to ask Mr. Stark. So drones..."

"Hammer drones." Natasha looked back at the building.

"Oh. So what happened to the building? It's on Karen's list of vacant buildings in the vicinity." Peter looked back at the building, this time focusing on the street in front.

"I thought SHIELD had taken control and cleaned it out. They definitely grabbed all the tech but I guess it's possible that they left the lab equipment."

"Ms. Romanoff, look at the manhole cover."

"Ok kid, first off - do not call me Ms. Romanoff. You're making me sound like a school teacher. It's either Nat or Natasha. Second, we are not climbing through the sewers tonight. There's no impending threat. We don't even know if they're there." Natasha pulled the binoculars down and looked over at Peter. Even with the mask, he looked crestfallen. "Meet me at the safe house and we'll come up with a plan."

XXXXXXXXXX

Natasha pulled up the door to the freight elevator and saw Peter looking at a holoscreen. It looked like he had gotten a head start on tracing the building history since the time SHIELD had scooped up the tech. "The government auctioned it off recently - complete with a functioning lab."

"Who bought it?" Natasha stepped closer to the screen.

"Sealed bid and the deed hasn't been updated yet." Peter crossed his arms in front of him. "So what's the plan?"

Natasha smirked. "First lesson. Don't move fast unless absolutely necessary. You were ready to climb into a sewer to get into the sub basement of a building just to see if some bad guys were making some kind of designer drug. In the grand scheme of things, this is not something you need to move on tonight."

"I know this is below your pay grade and probably really insignificant compared to some of the things you've faced, but..."

Natasha cut him off. "I've gone after the mob and crime families before so don't assume that I only deal in "Avenger Level" threats. If it's important to you then it's important to Tony and it's important to me. But you can't just continue to stumble into situations blindly." Natasha paused before continuing, "Wouldn't it be nice to know who you're going up against and what kind of tech they possess? From what I've seen, you're really good at handling yourself. You'd be even better if you went in prepared for what you were facing instead of just responding to what you're given. So, second lesson, you're going to come up with the plan. Which means you need to find out who owns the building, you need to find out what kind of opposition you'll face, and see if you can confirm what they're doing. All before actually going inside."

"Ms. Romanoff..."

"What did I tell you?" Natasha crossed her arms and stared at Peter.

"Fine, Nat? How am I supposed to find all that out without going inside?" Peter looked over at the holoscreen. He could probably find out pretty easily who owned the property. And, he could probably get his hands on building plans. And, he could probably figure out how to set up surveillance on the building to see who was coming and going.

"You know you can almost see the wheels turning in your head?"

"I've been told." Peter thought through his options. "All of my extra surveillance drones are at the compound. Plus, they're really not really geared towards long term surveillance."

Natasha smiled. "I have something that will work. Where do you want to set it up?"

"Rooftop? The same one we were on? It has a view of the underground garage." Peter studied the building on the holoscreen. It was the best place for surveillance.

"Good choice. I'll go back tonight and set it up."

Peter stared at Natasha. "Really?"

"Yes. It's 11:30 and your curfew is midnight. You should have plenty of time to get home. I'll set up the cameras tonight. Karen and FRIDAY can monitor for movement. Swing by after school tomorrow and we'll see what we have." Natasha dismissed the holoscreen and looked expectantly at Peter.

"Ok." Peter stepped toward the rooftop door. Pulling his mask over his head he turned to look at Natasha again. "See you tomorrow."

Stepping out onto the roof he flicked his wrist and webbed to the closest building to start the swing home. The thought going through his head was 'what the hell just happened'? Everything Natasha had said wasn't anything new. Mr. Stark had said all those things before too. They just sounded different coming from Natasha. But, on the bright side he wasn't being told to stay away from it. The complete opposite actually, Natasha was helping.


	5. Aliens In New York

Peter landed on the roof of the safe house. He had decided to swing there instead of take the subway. He slid the door open and heard Natasha. He paused when he heard his name.

"Tony, Peter is fine. You do not need to come back."

"Nat, planning an op to take down a Maggia crime family is not what I had in mind. Especially one that may or may not have ties to Hydra."

"Tony, you said it yourself he's going to do it anyway, he needs to learn how to do it right."

"I know but..."

"Stop trying to argue against yourself. I know you don't want him hurt which is why I'm going with him, although if the Hydra angle turns out to be real we're going to need help. Are you close enough to having the accords done where I can bring Steve in?"

Peter felt more than heard Tony's pause.

"Tony, I know you're still struggling with where you and Steve stand. I wish I had gone with you to Siberia. Maybe I could have stopped the two of you from trying to kill each other. But you have to know that Steve would never hurt Peter. He knows how out of control he was and how severely impaired his judgement was."

"Nat, I'm trying."

"Just think about it. I'll reach out and gauge if he thinks he'll even be able to get here before the pardons are complete."

"Thanks. I've got to get back to the committee. I'll call Pete tonight and see how he's doing."

Peter took a deep breath as he heard Tony disconnect from the call. Pushing the door fully open he made enough noise where he knew Natasha had heard him. He felt horrible about eavesdropping on the conversation but he knew he wouldn't have found out about Siberia if he hadn't. His brain was still processing the comment 'trying to kill each other'. "Hey Nat! Did Karen get you what she found?"

"Hey! You just missed Tony. He said he'd call you tonight after he got out of the committee meeting." Natasha looked up from the tablet she had in her hands.

"Did he say if he thinks they'll get it wrapped up today?"

"I think it's too soon to tell." Natasha flipped the screen from the tablet up to the holoscreen so both of them could look at it. "Karen managed to get the owner as well as the building plans. The owner is a shell corporation that FRIDAY is in the process of tracing. Building plans give us a couple ways to get in...when we decide to go."

Peter swallowed. He figured it would be better to own up to the fact that he knew about Hydra's potential involvement now rather than later. "Karen mentioned that there was a possibility that this group is tied in with Hydra. Do you think that really is a possibility?"

Natasha studied Peter's face. He was covering something, she just couldn't tell what. "Maybe. If they are, then this just went from your one man crusade with a little bit of help to a full Avenger operation."

Peter clinched his jaw. If Hydra was involved there's no way Tony would let him help. It wasn't fair.

"Peter, just because it's an Avenger op, it doesn't mean you're excluded. You may not be in the middle of things but you'll be on the mission." Natasha thought she was starting to be able to read Peter almost as well as Tony did. It was encouraging at least.

"So what's the next step?" Peter was somewhat optimistic that maybe Natasha could convince Tony to let him stay involved.

"The next step is the glorious and oh so fulfilling activity of looking through surveillance footage." Natasha grinned and pulled up the video feed. At least FRIDAY had culled it down to times when there was actually activity. Which for about 18 hours worth of video was only about 10 minutes. Two vehicles exited out of the underground parking and one went in hours later. One of the vehicles exiting was the same one Peter had seen by the school. FRIDAY was also tasked with running down the other two vehicles. They had names they just didn't know who they were. 

By the time they were done with the surveillance video, Peter was almost bouncing with pent up energy. "So what's our next move?" Natasha wanted Peter to try to dictate the course of action. That way she knew he was buying into it and wouldn't be off on his own.

Peter thought through everything they knew, which wasn't much. "We still don't know for sure what they're doing and FRIDAY is still identifying the people involved." He hated what he was about to say. "We wait. We need more surveillance information to form a more complete picture and we need to give FRIDAY time to identify everyone."

Natasha smiled. He was learning. "Peter, go do your thing. But stay away from that part of town. We don't want them tipped off that we know anything about the facility." Natasha thought he'd probably behave himself. It was his idea after all.

"Yes, ma'am. What are you going to do?"

"I'm going to do some research of my own and do some reading on our aliens. Tony pulled some of the files from the 90's so I thought I'd start going through them." Natasha picked up the tablet and collapsed the holoscreen. "Have fun but remember your curfew. I don't need Tony giving me grief about you staying out too late." Smirking, she watched him roll his eyes at her as he pulled the mask down.

XXXXXXXXXXX

Karen piped into his ear, "Incoming call from Mr. Stark. Would you like it on your HUD?"

"Yes. Thanks Karen!" Peter landed on a roof and sat on the parapet, swinging his legs over the side as Mr. Stark appeared on his HUD.

"Hey kid! How's your night?"

"Webbed up some guys trying to rob a gas station. It was ridiculously easy. It's like they're not even trying."

Tony laughed, "Easy is not a bad thing."

"I know. Hey, how are the Accords going?"

Tony sighed, "Looks like they're not going to get done until early next week. They're trying to make some last minute additions that were having to push back on. It's nothing T'Challa, Rhodey, and I can't handle but it's still going to keep me here all weekend. I'm sorry, I know it's a compound weekend."

"It's ok. You said it was a possibility. I think everyone will be better off when they're finalized so if it means I don't get to hang out at the compound this weekend, that's ok. Nat will have more surveillance video to review so maybe I'll go over to the safe house tomorrow and help." Peter missed hanging out with Mr. Stark but he'd rather get the Accords wrapped up so he wouldn't have to spend so much time in D.C.

"Did you just call her Nat?"

Peter immediately got defensive, "She told me to and when I called her Ms. Romanoff she corrected me and...well, she kinda doesn't give you an option when she says to do something, but not in a scary way. I mean, she told me to stay away from the old Hammer Industries building in Queens so now I'm in Manhattan."

Tony laughed. "She does have that ability. And, don't let her fool you, she has a scary way too." Tony paused, "I'm just trying to figure out why you're still calling me Mr. Stark instead of Tony."

That comment gave Peter pause. Why did he still call Mr. Stark 'Mr. Stark'? The man had tried to get him to call him Tony months ago but it just didn't seem to stick with Peter. "You've always been Mr. Stark...so it's kind of a habit now." Peter knew that wasn't a great answer but he didn't know what else to say. He had called him Tony a handful of times, but none of them good. It was usually after a nightmare or the time when the empty Iron Man suit got destroyed. A lot of thoughts started swirling around in Peter's head. Thoughts he didn't want to deal with so he did the only thing he could, he changed subjects. "So did Nat tell you about the Hydra connection."

Tony wasn't sure what the look was on Peter's face. Having a conversation while he was in the suit wasn't the best time to try to get a read on his expressions. The HUD gave him a limited view. "Yes. And it means you need to be extra careful. She also told me you're worried that I'm going to stop you from participating in the op if that's the case." He could tell Peter had stiffened a little at that comment. "It's your op which means you get to participate but you will have ground rules. Start getting comfortable with the idea of wearing the Iron Spider suit because if you're on a op involving Hydra the suit is non-optional."

"Really? I'm good with the Iron Spider suit. It's just hard to wear every night because I'm not as flexible."

Tony smiled at Peter's excitement. It was the right call, he just hated that the thought of letting Peter participate in an op involving Hydra. It almost made him sick. "We can work on the flexibility. I just want to make sure you're bulletproof."

"Yes, sir. Thank you!" Peter was ecstatic.

"Ok kid, go patrol and stay out of trouble. It sounds like we're not making move until I get back anyway. We have time."

"Thanks Mr. Stark!" Peter watched the call disconnect and flipped off of the parapet, flinging a web to swing down the street. He couldn't believe he was going to be allowed to participate in an op with Iron Man and Black Widow.

"Peter, swing lower."

Peter frowned. Karen never gave directions like that. Complying, he asked "Why?"

"My sensors picked up an energy reading that was similar to the alien tech belonging to the species identified as the Kree."

Peter swooped lower. "Where?" Karen lit up a spot on the HUD. Peter scrutinized the area below him. He didn't see anything suspicious. "Karen, are you still picking up anything?"

"Negative. Sorry Peter."

Peter perched on the edge of a roof and watched the street below him. It drove him crazy that there was potentially an alien down there and he couldn't pick it up. His own spider sense wasn't going off so it was more than likely just a random sighting instead of the lead up to something dangerous. That actually bothered him even more. Aliens were walking around New York and no one was the wiser.


	6. Drone Surgery

Peter rolled out of bed groaning. He hadn't slept well. It hadn't been a nightmare plagued night, it had just been a restless one. He had never thought of himself as a creature of habit but he had started picking up on the fact that if his compound schedule was off it bothered him. He should be waking up in his room at the compound. But instead, he was in his room at the apartment. May was at work because it was a compound weekend so the apartment was completely silent. 

Eating quickly he debated what to do. Karen picking up the alien signature then losing it bothered him. He wanted to go back and check out the area again. But, Spider-Man hanging out in Manhattan during the day on a Saturday would be weird. He could get away with it at night but during the day it would cause too many curious eyes. He also wanted to see if Natasha had anything new on the lab. Deciding on a course of action he threw the suit into a backpack and dressed in jeans and a T-shirt he headed out for the subway.

Mr. Stark had really done a great job picking out the safe house. On top of having the perfect roof for both Spider-Man and Iron Man to come and go, there were 4 different access points to enter on foot, not to mention Peter could easily scale the side of the building and enter through a window as well. Deciding that wasn't a good option during the day and in street clothes he picked one of the normal entrances and rode the freight elevator up to the common area. Natasha was expecting him and greeted him with a cup of coffee in her hands.

"There's been a little bit of activity at the lab. Nothing overly interesting but FRIDAY did trace the shell corporation to a known Hydra entity so looks like your drug dealers are at the very least tied in with them, possibly even working directly with them."

Peter knew that meant that the operation just got a lot more complicated but he was going to hold Mr. Stark to his word that he'd let him participate. "I'm guessing that means that we're not doing anything about it for a while?"

Natasha took a sip of her coffee. "We definitely want to know more about what they're doing. Peter, stumbling across this may be one of the biggest things related to Hydra since they tried to take SHIELD. You did good, just be patient. There's much more at stake now."

Peter sighed, "I know, I'm just not good at sitting still."

Natasha laughed. That was an understatement. As she took another sip of coffee she mentally made a note to avoid letting the kid have caffeine. Although it might be interesting to watch. "So how did it go last night?"

"It was weird. I went into Manhattan. While I was there Karen thought she picked up one of the aliens but it was so brief she couldn't track it."

"Really? Where? Karen, can you play the suit feed from last night?" She put her coffee down and brought up the holoscreen. The feed pulled up showing the brief blip. Natasha watched it several times but didn't see anything that stood out. She sat back in thought.

"So what do we do about it? I can't hang out in Manhattan during the day as Spider-Man - I'd cause too many onlookers. I don't think you need to hang out at one of the most heavily patrolled areas in the world until after the pardons are done." Peter leaned against the table and waited for Natasha's input.

"What do you have that's an active sensor?"

Peter thought through the gear he had that wasn't at the compound. "Droney. Karen, how long can the Spider Drone function outside of the suit?"

"Your Spider Drone can only function for 6 hours without recharging." Peter frowned. Six hours was not enough time. "Nat, do you have your old gauntlets?"

Natasha frowned at Peter. "Yes. What are you planning?"

Peter grinned. "Upgrades. Grab your gauntlets. I think there's a tool kit in the MedBay."

Natasha returned with the gauntlets to see Peter leaned over the table unscrewing the back of what looked like a mechanical spider. "Tony made your drones spiders?"

Not taking his eyes off the back of the drone Peter nodded. "If they weren't so cool they would creep me out a little. This one's name is Droney." Finally glancing up he looked over at Natasha, "Gauntlets?"

Natasha handed them over and watched Peter examine them and then flip them over and start unscrewing a tiny screw. A small door popped open revealing one of the mini-arc reactors that powered them. "Ok, I know what you're doing. Need any help?"

Peter shook his head. "FRIDAY, can you turn on some music?"

Natasha smiled as a familiar track started playing. Stepping back she pulled out her phone and swiped open the camera. Hitting record, she recorded about 30 seconds of Peter working then texted it to Tony.

XXXXXXXXXX

Sitting across from T'Challa, Rhodey, and a few members of the committee hashing out some of the details to the Accords at a breakfast meeting, Tony felt his phone vibrate. Pulling it out of his pocket he glanced down at text from Natasha and saw that it was a video. He heard T'Challa stand next to him and looked up to see him shake the hand of the committee members. Rising, he followed suit. "Looking forward to getting this wrapped up Monday morning."

T'Challa stepped back from the table, "Allow me to walk you out. I wish to discuss some ways that Wakanda might partner with your countries." He nodded to Tony and Rhodey and ushered the men out.

As soon as the room cleared, Tony pushed play on the video and smiled as he heard the familiar strands of 'Back In Black'. Peter was removing an arc reactor from Natasha's old gauntlets and it looked like he had his Spider Drone on the table performing surgery.

Rhodey looked over and watched the short video. "See, I swear he's just a smaller version of you."

"Natasha said that too, although she included spider and Iron Man emojis. But you're both wrong, he's better than me." Tony saved the video to his phone and stood up. "I want to finish this up so I can get home before the kid replaces me entirely." He texted Natasha back to find out why Peter was replacing the power source in the drone. He figured Peter needed to use it away from the suit longer than it would run without an arc reactor but wasn't sure why. She responded with an alien emoji and then promised to call when Peter was done.

Tony looked at Rhodey and showed him the text. "I swear she uses emojis just to throw people off balance."


	7. Babysitting Duty

Natasha sat back and watched Peter work. He had the same energy that Tony and Bruce had when they were working on a project. Her ears perked up when she realized that when the familiar strands of 'Back In Black' ended the next song was not one of Tony's normal songs. She had heard his lab-time soundtrack many times over the years and had heard Bruce complain about it as well. Tony would never let him add songs so Bruce was forced to endure hours of AC/DC, Black Sabbath, Metallica, and Led Zeppelin. The song playing was not any of those. "Is this Imagine Dragons?"

Peter looked up and listened to the song playing. "Yeah, it's 'Radioactive'". Looking back down at the spider drone he continued the delicate operation of replacing the battery with the arc reactor.

Natasha smiled to herself. Things with Tony had indeed changed. The kid had worked his way under Tony's facade and had firmly planted himself there. Peter would be a great addition to the team although it was going to add a new dynamic that had never been there before. She had already seen Tony's protective side come out when it came to Peter but she thought what she had seen so far had only scratched the surface. Steve's judgement had been impaired because of his need to protect Bucky. Tony's would be just as bad. They were so close to being able to get the team back together the last thing they needed was another fight.

Peter replaced the cover on the drone's belly and tightened the screws. Pulling out his phone he opened the control app and powered up the drone. It glowed light blue for a moment and then hovered over the table. Setting it back down he looked over at Natasha. "It'll run indefinitely now. I'll plant it near where Karen picked up the alien signature and we'll see what we get."

"Tony wants an update first." Natasha dialed Tony and put the phone on speaker.

"So what's going on with the aliens?" Tony's voice echoed from the phone.

"Good morning to you too." Natasha frowned at her phone.

Tony sighed, "Good Morning Agent Romanoff. Better?"

Peter laughed. "Karen picked up something last night but it was so brief we couldn't trace it. I altered Droney with an arc reactor so he could stay active. I'm going to drop him off where we picked up the signal last night and see what happens."

"Ok. Let me know what you find. Did you have any problem getting the arc reactor into Droney?"

"No sir. It wasn't that different from pulling the reactors from the Iron Man suit." Peter picked up Droney and put him in his backpack.

"We'll let you know if we pick up anything." Natasha was shocked that Tony had let Peter work on the Iron Man suits. He never let anyone else work on the suits. "Let us know how the accords go on Monday." Natasha disconnected the call and looked over at Peter who was throwing his backpack over his shoulder. "You good?"

"Yeah, I'll find somewhere he can sit that's shielded but gives him a good view of the area. His radius should give him good coverage. Karen can record anything that triggers." Peter shrugged, "Maybe we'll get lucky."

XXXXXXXXXX

By Monday morning they were 36 hours into Droney's stake out and they still weren't any closer to finding anything. Peter kept pulling his phone out to check for updates from Droney...so often that his phone had been taken by his teacher in the class before lunch. Luckily he could still glance down at his watch. He had seen an alert come across about an hour ago indicating that Droney had picked up a signal. That message was immediately followed by one from Mr. Stark that read _"Do not under any circumstance leave school to check this out. I mean it."_ He got another one about fifteen minutes later that started with a spider emoji with the message _"I'll pick you up after school"._ Now sitting in his final class of the day his eyes were fixed on the clock. The bell rang and he flew out of his desk. He thought he might have actually jumped over the desk next to him. Hopefully if he did no one was paying attention. Skipping his locker he ran straight to the office to retrieve his cell phone. Sliding it into his pocket after enduring a brief lecture he ran out the front door and down the steps skidding to a stop in front of Natasha's car. Pulling the door open he threw his back back in the front seat and slid in after it. "Did we find one?"

"Relax Spiderling. How was school?" Natasha smoothly pulled into traffic and headed toward the safe house.

"How was school?" Peter asked incredulously. "School was annoyingly long. What about the alien. Why aren't we headed toward Manhattan?"

"Droney and FRIDAY are keeping an eye on things. We are going to the safe house to review the intel and make a plan based on what we know."

Peter let out a frustrated growl which just made Natasha laugh. Karen piped up from Peter's watch. "Incoming call from Mr. Stark."

"Kid, I can't believe you actually stayed in school. Natasha must be a good influence."

"Tony, I'm going to remember that you said that." Natasha glanced over at Peter who was looking more and more frustrated.

"So what are you two planning on doing?"

Peter looked over at Natasha. "She wants to go to the safe house, review intel, and make a plan." The tone in his voice indicated that he thought it was the most ludicrous thing anyone could think of to do in the current situation.

"That sounds like a good idea."

Peter let out another frustrated growl. Realizing he wasn't getting any support from Mr. Stark, he changed subjects. "How are the Accords coming?"

"The Accords are being ratified as we speak. Natasha, it's going to take a couple days for the pardons to become effective so keep a low profile."

"Tony, congratulations! I know how much work you put into them. It sounds like the final version is something everyone can live with." Natasha pulled into the underground parking of the safe house.

"That's great Mr. Stark! Does that mean you're headed back to New York?"

"As soon as it's fully ratified. I'll let you know when I land. Keep me posted on what you plan to do."

"Ok. Bye Mr. Stark." Peter disconnected the call and opened the car door. Natasha followed him to the elevator and up to the common room. "What did Droney find?"

Natasha pulled up a picture on the holoscreen. "This is our alien. The energy signature that was emitted matches the Kree weapons signature. We don't think it's a weapon, the current guess is that he's using some kind of scanner."

Peter studied the picture. He looked like a normal New Yorker. "The Kree are the ones that don't shape shift, right?"

Natasha pulled up another image. "Yes, however, apparently not all Kree look like humans." The picture she pulled up showed a humanoid with distinctly blue skin. "I was able to get some additional intel on them. They tend to go the route of genocide and universe domination with some genetic manipulation thrown in for fun."

Peter frowned, "That sounds an awful lot like Hydra."

Natasha pulled up the original picture of the guy Karen had tagged as a Kree. "Yeah, funny that you say that because the name this guy has been going by it tied in with Hydra."

"Ok, first my drug dealers are tied in with Hydra and now the aliens are? Isn't that a little weird." Peter sat down in the chair in front of the holoscreen.

"When we exposed Hydra the one thing we did learn is that while there's an overall structure with a single goal there are a lot of splinter cells as well. The intel on Hydra's involvement with the Maggia came from the information dump. Being involved with the Maggia added a funding source. Hydra provided resources to the heads of the family in exchange they got a cut of the profits." Natasha sat down in the other chair and looked up at the screen. "This alien thing seems like it may be a little closer to the core Hydra group. SHIELD is chasing some leads but what they've uncovered so far indicates that Hydra's involvement with the Kree goes back centuries but they don't have details."

Peter crossed his arms and looked over at Natasha. "So what are we going to do?"

"We are going to gather intel tonight. I know you want to make a difference and you want to keep people safe and that doing recon and surveillance isn't exactly what you enjoy doing but it's important."

Peter nodded. "I get it. I'm just glad you're not shutting me down."

Natasha smiled. "We'll see if I can manage to not get you hurt before Tony comes back." Shifting her attention back to the screen she pulled up a map of Manhattan. "Once Karen identified our target, FRIDAY put together a timeline and path of his movements. He has a routine. I can't figure out what he's doing though. And I can't tell who else is an alien. So the goal will be to identify if any of the people he associates with are also Kree. Bonus if we can get any information on what they're doing." She looked over at Peter. "That's it. We don't want to tip our hand until we know more."

Peter sighed. "Ok, so gathering intel. What's the plan?"

"You go high. FRIDAY is going to update Karen on some additional scan parameters I was able to get from Fury. Hopefully she'll be able to tell if any of his associates are human or Kree. I'm your backup if you get into trouble."

"So you're my babysitter." Frustration was apparent in Peter's voice. He was capable of following someone and gathering intel on his own.

"Peter, I may be able to see something from the ground that you can't see. Plus Tony will kill me if I let you near this without backup. And, honestly, I'm going a little stir crazy staying in the safe house. Picking you up from school has been the highlight of the last two weeks."

Peter smiled at the school comment. Black Widow probably hadn't picked up many kids from school before. "I'm sure Happy would love to give up his school pickup duties."

Natasha shook her head. "I'm not volunteering for a permanent assignment. Go swing around Queens. Burn off some energy. I'll meet you in Manhattan tonight at 8pm."


	8. Battle In Central Park

Peter crouched on a roof above the streets of Manhattan. Natasha was on the street below him, about a half a block behind their target. Her voice was piped through his mask. Peter was definitely learning to appreciate the fact that the mask made communication so easy. He knew Natasha had an earpiece in. It didn't matter how advanced the technology got, it still looked uncomfortable. "You got him?" Natasha's voice came through clearly. Peter glanced down, "Yes." He glanced ahead and saw Central Park looming in the distance. "Nat, you know if he goes into Central Park I'll have to follow from the edge. If I go through the park I'm too low and he'll see me."

"I know. It'll be fine. When he crossed through the park previously he was alone and he went straight to his apartment. Plus Fury thinks there's only two others and they've yet to make any kind of appearance." Natasha closed the gap between her and the target as he reached the park. Peter was right, she would be the only set of eyes on him until he got back on the main streets. "When we get there, skirt around to the right. He should turn that way about half way through."

"I don't like this." Peter honestly couldn't tell if his spidey sense was starting to tingle or if the thought of losing sight of the target was just making him anxious.

"Has Karen picked up on any other signatures?" Natasha glanced around the entrance of the park.

"No, but even with the additional data the scans aren't really effective. This guy only shows up if she targets him directly instead of a wide scan. She's targeting everyone within 500 feet but we won't be able to see as well once you're in the park." Peter landed on the side of a high rise next to Central Park. Leaning out he watched the target and Natasha enter the park. "Karen, how many individuals are within 500 feet of the target?"

"Too many to scan effectively. Recommend limiting scan to 100 feet."

Peter looked down at the park below him. Natasha and the target were illuminated on the map overlay on his HUD. "Limit focused scanning to 100 feet." Yellow dots popped up on the overlay indicating the scan targets. As Karen cleared each one, the dots turned green. Peter scaled the building he was hanging on to get back to the roof so he could move quicker. Keeping up with Natasha, he followed them through the park.

"Additional targets identified."

Peter heard a quiet "Shit" through the coms as red dots lit up on his HUD. "Nat, there's four of them in addition to the target." Quickly evaluating his options, Peter dove off the roof of the building he was on and shot a web to a much lower building that would bring him closer to the park. Keeping an eye on his HUD he watched the red dots move closer together. The path Natasha was on was going to take her directly to them. He paused on the lower building to see if she could manage to pass them. On the HUD it looked like they were now grouped together and Natasha was just a few feet away. He thought she had managed to walk by unnoticed until she heard a voice through her coms. "Why are you following me?"

"I'm just walking home, I don't want any trouble."

Peter thought she had played the part of innocent well, but apparently not well enough. Natasha's dot merged with the group and he heard her gauntlets charging. Launching off the building he webbed onto another building and propelled himself over the lower trees bordering the path. Launching two taser webs as he landed on two of the men, he pulled them towards each other. The combined force threw them together and momentarily knocked them off balance. "Karen, why didn't that take them down like it did before? Increase the voltage."

"Peter, that was the maximum voltage. Close quarters scan indicates that they're all wearing some sort of body armor. It is absorbing the energy."  
Peter was pretty sure Karen had piped her analysis into Natasha's coms because she immediately pulled one of her guns and fired multiple rounds into the closest target. Apparently the body armor was thick enough to stop bullets as well because the impacts barely slowed him down. Peter's spidey sense went off forcing him into a roll to avoid a blast from one of the weapons. He had been able to avoid most of the hits and was managing to deflect a couple into his opponents as well but he and Natasha were completely outmatched.

Peter detected movement behind him at the same time he thought he heard a repulsor charging.

"On your six kid."

"Mr. Stark?" Already in the process of wrapping one of the attackers up in webs, he flung him into a tree and fired a series of web grenades effectively binding him to the trunk. Flipping up and back to avoid another attacker he spotted Iron Man landing in the middle of the battle and firing both repulsors at the three attackers in front of him. "What are you doing here? Is it you you or suit you?"

"It's me. Karen sent out an SOS. Less talking, more fighting." Firing both repulsors at one of the attackers he drove him to the ground.

Peter took the opportunity to fire web grenades at the one that was down, binding his arms and legs. He glanced over to see Natasha pull one of them to the ground. As soon as she pushed off her quarry's back he fired web grenades at that one as well. Two remaining targets were identified on his HUD and apparently they were the ones with the bigger weapons. Targeting the one closest to him, he flipped up, landing a well placed kick to his target's chest driving him back and into Natasha who landed a blow of her own knocking the weapon from his hands. Iron Man fired both repulsors into the targets’ chest driving him to the ground as well.

An additional dot lit up on Peter's HUD as he turned and saw the remaining Kree aim his weapon at Iron Man. As the Kree pulled the trigger, he was tackled to the ground, causing the weapons fire to hit a tree directly next to Iron Man.

Tony ducked as the energy blast hit the tree. Looking at the source he saw the last combatant on the ground. The man that had tackled him and knocked him unconscious stood up and faced them.

"Sorry I'm late."


	9. Rooftop Talk

Peter saw the imposing figure of Steve Rogers rise from his position over the final Kree. Not really registering what anyone was saying, 'tried to kill each other' echoed in his head and he instinctively stepped in front of Iron Man, placing himself between the two men.

Steve studied the figure standing in front of him. He still didn't know his name and Nat hadn't offered it up when she talked about him. He just knew Nat had been impressed and he knew Tony was, so that was enough for him. He wasn't sure what had prompted Spider-Man to position himself the way he did but he thought it probably had more to do with Tony than it did the last interaction he had with him. Deciding not to push it he stayed in position and just offered a greeting. "Queens."

Peter crossed his arms. "Brooklyn." He heard Tony's voice in his ear. "Pete? You good?" Peter gave a small nod in response.

Natasha moved between Peter and Steve. Facing Peter she looked at him. "You're not hurt?"

Peter shook his head. "No ma'am. Are you ok?" He tilted his head and studied a small cut on her temple.

"I've had worse. You did good!" Glancing over Peter's shoulder at Tony she shook her head. "Fury's intel was bad. We were in too far before we realized." She glanced around, "We're starting to draw a crowd." She looked back at Steve. "Can you help me clean up?" After getting Steve's affirmative nod, she turned back to Tony. "Why don't you two get out of here. We'll take care of this."

Tony stepped around Peter to face him. "Pick a roof top, I'll meet you there in 2 minutes."

Peter recognized the order in the tone and nodded in agreement. Stepping back to flip onto a light pole, he looked up at Iron Man again. "Are you sure?"

Tony nodded. He muted himself to everyone but Peter. "It'll be fine. I'll be there in 2 minutes." He watched Peter flip onto the light pole and web to a building to make his way higher. Turning back around he looked at Steve and Natasha. "In 30 seconds or less explain to me why this went from a recon mission to a full blown battle. The ink isn't even dry on the Accords." He knew Natasha understood why he was upset and that it had very little to do with the Accords.

"Tony, it's on me. They made my tail and forced the situation. Spidey did good." Natasha was already checking that all of the Kree were secured. "We'll take care of clean up. I'll call Fury to grab some of them but I want the live ones."

Tony nodded. "The one on the tree and the one over there are the two that are still breathing." He knew Natasha understood that the status of the aliens was not to be discussed with Peter. Hitting his boot jets he took off to find his kid.

XXXXXXXXXX

Tony landed on the roof behind Peter. He knew it was a ridiculous thought but somehow the kid looked both older and younger than the last time he saw him. His legs were dangling off the roof and his mask was in his hands. FRIDAY had already interfaced with Karen and he knew that Peter hadn't been hurt. Swinging an armored leg over the parapet he maneuvered his way until he was sitting next to Peter. "Thanks for not picking the Empire State Building."

Peter laughed and looked over at Mr. Stark. "There's too many bats." His expression becoming more subdued, he looked back down at Central Park. "I'm sorry you had to come help."

"I'm not. If you're going to be in the middle of a fight I want to be there. And, not because I don't trust you to handle yourself. I want to be there because fighting as a team is better than fighting alone."

Peter glanced over at Tony when he mentioned team. "Is that what's going to happen? The Avengers will come back like nothing happened?" If Peter was honest with himself he wasn't entirely sure what he was asking. He wasn't sure what his role would be once the Avengers were back. He also didn't know if they were a team. 'Tried to kill each other' echoed through his brain again.

"Well, Natasha is already calling you her Junior Avenger so I feel fairly safe in saying that you're a member of the team." Tony looked at Peter trying to tell what he was thinking. "That is if you want to be. You've already turned it down once. If you still want to just help the little guy you can do that too."

Peter smiled at the Junior Avenger comment. "When I turned you down I was still a little overwhelmed by what happened with the Vulture. Sticking close to the ground and helping the little guy seemed to be a better option at the time."

"And now?" Tony genuinely wasn't sure what Peter's answer would be. And, he was ok with either answer. They would still work in the lab on Wednesday's and every other weekend regardless if Peter became part of the team.

"Now, the idea of backup, both having backup and being someone else's backup is something I really want." Peter looked down at the street below them. "Do you trust them?"

Tony thought about Peter's question. Trust was such a complicated concept. Did he trust the rest of them to do what ever it took to save the world? Without a doubt. Did he trust them to watch his back? Maybe. Did he trust them to watch Peter's back? That thought almost knocked the breath out of him. Did he trust them to watch Peter's back...his gut told him yes, but the idea of Peter's safety being in someone else's hands was something he realized he wasn't sure he was ready for. "I trust that Steve wants to rebuild the team. He knows that trust between teammates is the cornerstone of that so I think he'll do whatever he can to make sure we don't have a repeat of last year. I trust Natasha and Steve to do what they can to rebuild the team and if that includes you then I trust them with that."

Peter took a deep breath. "Even after last year?"

Tony studied Peter. Somehow the kid knew what had happened in Siberia. He wasn't sure how but it explained Peter moving between him and Steve. "Even after last year. Steve and I both made mistakes. I'll be honest, I do struggle with resetting our relationship. A year ago I would have called him my friend. Now, I don't know what it is but I think it's something that needs to be rebuilt, and it's something that I think we're both willing to do."

Tony let what he said sink in. There was something else they needed to discuss. It had already been a pretty heavy conversation but he didn't think he could wait. "The pardons will be coming down sometime later this week. Depending on what's going on, Natasha may stay at the safe house instead of coming back to the compound. Because of what's going on with Hydra, the rest of them will be showing up before long. The more we find out, the larger their operation looks. Whatever we do will probably involve everyone." Tony paused and looked at Peter. He was torn about what he wanted Peter's answer to be to the question he was about to ask. "You're going to need to decide what you want to do about your identity. I'll support whatever decision you make."

Peter had already given the question some thought. Keeping his identity secret was the one foolproof way he had to keep the people he cared about safe. The longer he was Spider-Man the more enemies he made. But, he knew he wanted to be part of a team. "Mr. Stark, if I want to be part of a team then the team has to be able to trust me. They can't do that if they don't know who I am."

Tony smiled. The kid was way more mature than the rest of them. He was positive if faced with the same situation, the rest of them, himself included, would not have answered the same way. "Ok. That's what we'll do then. Next big question...do you want to skip school tomorrow? Alien battle rules still apply."

Peter grinned. "I have a physics test tomorrow." He shook his head, "I'm good. This isn't freaking me out as much as it did before. I think I'm probably going to have to sneak in though. I don't think I'm making curfew."

Tony chuckled. "I'll fix it with May. You sure you're ok?"

Peter nodded. "I'm good. I may need a ride home. I used a lot of web fluid. I'm not sure I have enough to swing home."

Tony laughed. "I'll get Happy to pick us up. I don't want to fly either."

"Hey, how'd your get to Central Park so fast?" Peter hadn't thought about it until now but he had gotten there too fast to have been coming from the compound.

"I was about 20,000 feet up. We were on our way back when Karen sent the SOS." Tony checked where Happy was. When he had left the plane he had told Happy to land the jet and bring the car back to the city. He'd be here soon. "I'll get Happy to bring us cheeseburgers too."


	10. Unmasked

Natasha pulled the cell door shut. She was confident that both cells would hold their captives. She and Steve had already gotten a decent amount of information out of them. They were remarkably egotistical and didn't mind telling them what they were doing because they thought humans were beneath them. They seemed to think that most life forms were beneath them. It turned out to be an interesting interrogation. She'd finish up in the morning and deliver them to Fury before Peter got out of school. She had a feeling she'd be seeing Tony and Peter tomorrow afternoon so she could fill them in then.

Steve met her at the elevator. "Are our guests tucked in for the night?"

Natasha nodded. "They're not going anywhere. I'll take another run at them in the morning and then deliver them to Fury." She pulled the freight elevator door down and pushed the button to take them up to the main common area.

"So this is really Spider-Man's safe house? He didn't strike me as someone that would have a warehouse in Queens." Steve looked around the open room as Natasha opened the freight elevator door.

"No, it's Tony's safe house that he has for Spider-Man. Apparently Tony lost it when he found out that the kid watched a YouTube video to learn how to stitch himself up. This was the compromise." Natasha walked around the open common room. "It really is a good idea to have something like this. We might want to look into setting one up in a couple different places."

Steve looked around. "Tony did all of this for Spider-Man."

Natasha couldn't tell if it was a question or a statement. "Steve, there's something different about Tony. If there's one good thing that came out of that disaster last year it's Spider-Man." She paused. "So don't mess it up."

"Nat, I know. I'm trying." Steve hated the way things were. They were close to being able to start putting things back together again. The last thing he wanted to do was to put them back to square one again.

Natasha softened her tone, "I know." Grabbing his hand she dragged him back to the elevator. "Come one, I'll show you the rest of the building."

XXXXXXXXXX

Tony drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. He had gotten into the city earlier than he needed to, but he didn't have any where else to be. He had seriously thought about checking Peter out early, but a sense of responsibility took over and he realized he couldn't check the kid out just because he was early...and bored. So, he parked and waited for the bell to ring. Peter had actually been the one to suggest going to the safe house after school. Tony thought it was out of a mixture of wanting to know more about the aliens and wanting to get the face to face meeting with Steve out of the way. Either way, when the kid texted and asked if he would pick him up after school so they could go to the safe house together there was no way Tony was going to say no.

Kids poured out of the front doors moments after the bell rang. Peter opened the door of the Audi and slid into the passenger seat. "Hey Mr. Stark!"

"How'd the physics test go?" Tony maneuvered through the sea of cars to the main road and headed toward the safe house.

"No issues. And no homework. I think all of the teachers realize that Spring Break is only a few weeks away and that half of their students are mentally checked out already."

Spring Break brought back a stream of memories for Tony. Or, actually, a stream of memories with punctuations of black holes of alcohol induced memory loss. He was extraordinarily glad that Peter was not following in those footsteps. "What are you doing for Spring Break?"

Peter shrugged. "MJ and Ned are both visiting relatives. I was kind of hoping I could come out to the compound a little bit more that week?" He looked over at Tony hoping his request wouldn't get shot down.

"Want to spend the entire week?" Tony looked over at Peter to gauge his response. He was thrilled the kid wanted to spend extra days there.

"Really? I'd love to. I mean, I have to check with May, but that would be great!"

Tony smiled to himself as he turned down the street to reach the safe house. Pulling into the underground parking he glanced over at Peter. "You're still ok with Steve and the others knowing your identity?"

Peter nodded. "I am." He opened the car door, got out and followed Mr. Stark to the elevator.

Steve and Natasha were reviewing video and looked up when the elevator doors pulled open. Tony and Peter stepped off. Tony had given Natasha a heads up that Peter was ok sharing his identity with the others, starting with Steve. Natasha took it as encouraging after the way Peter had inserted himself between Steve and Tony last night. It had dawned on her in that moment that it wasn't just Tony who was protective but also Peter. She knew Steve would protect Peter's identity as well as Peter himself so she felt like Peter being willing to trust Steve with his identity was definitely a step in the right direction.

Steve walked over to Peter and offered his hand. "Queens, it's nice to meet you without the mask."

Peter reached out to shake Steve's hand. "Peter Parker."

"Natasha said on top of being good in the field, you're also giving Tony a run for his money on the genius side too. Something about watching you take an arc reactor out of her gauntlets to make a drone run longer? That's pretty impressive."

Peter shook his head, "It's just because Mr. Stark let's me work in the lab with him sometimes."

Natasha walked over and took Peter by the arm and pulled him away. She could tell he didn't like the praise. "Come on, I'll start filling you in on what we've gotten from the aliens so far."

Steve caught Tony's arm as he started to follow. "I'll protect him. I want you to understand that."

Tony looked at Steve. "I expect you to."

Steve released Tony's arm and they followed Natasha and Peter. She had pulled up the map of Manhattan focused on the area they were in last night.

"So the Kree are interesting. Very egotistical. They have a superiority complex and they assume they're better than everyone else. This particular group were the remaining members of the group that you ran into a couple months ago." Natasha glanced over at Peter who was taking in everything she was saying. "They're basically a kill squad. Their single mission was to hunt down rogue Skrull."

Peter looked over at Tony. "That fits with what I saw. The other ones were definitely chasing the Skrull and were way more interested in killing them than me."

Steve looked between Tony and Peter. "Do you have video feeds from that incident? I'd like to review them since I'm coming into this late."

Tony nodded. "FRIDAY will download them to you."

Peter looked back at the map. "So what were they doing last night? That was a lot of body armor and weapons for recon."

Natasha highlighted a building. "They had intel that some Skrulls were holed up here. Like I said, they're a kill squad. They were planning on taking out the Skrulls. Collateral damage didn't matter."

Tony studied the building. "Do we know what that building is? And if the Skrulls are actually there?"

Natasha shook her head. "The building ownership traces back to a shell corporation and I haven't been able to get back to a warm body."

"I'll get FRIDAY on it." Tony enlarged the map and looked at the building.

"As far as the Skrull's go, we don't know, but I'm assuming we can use Droney to continue to monitor the building?" Natasha looked at Peter for confirmation.

"Yeah, I'll reposition him tonight." Peter looked at the zoomed in picture of the building. He tilted his head to the side and pointed at vent stacks on the roof. "Those look like hood vents for a lab."

Tony looked at where Peter was pointing. "They do. Why don't I reposition Droney. I'll get FRIDAY to do some additional scans of the building. She's got a little more power than Karen does."

Steve looked at Natasha and mouthed "Who's Karen?"

She waived him off. She could fill him in later. She was a little more curious as to what Tony thought he saw and why he didn't want Peter near it.


	11. No Fly Zone

Tony hovered over the roof of the building the Kree had been targeting. "FRIDAY, deep scan the building." Schematics rolled across his HUD as FRIDAY worked her way through the building. It was definitely lab space complete with cold storage. "Anything on the ownership? Is it who I think it is?"

"The building is owned by multiple corporations each with a different country of origin. Likelihood of Oscorp ownership is 85%."

Tony waited long enough for FRIDAY to finish her scans then took off for the safe house.

XXXXXXXXXX

Natasha and Steve looked up from the holoscreen when Tony walked through the roof entrance. Steve furrowed his brows, "Whats wrong?"

"Manhattan building is off limits. And you need to help me keep Peter away from it." Tony walked into the small kitchen and grabbed a water bottle.

"Ok. Why?" Natasha leaned back in her chair and watched Tony. She could tell he was agitated.  
"There's a good chance the building belongs to Oscorp. The field trip Peter was on when he got bitten..."

Natasha finished his sentence, "was to Oscorp? Why on earth would you take kids there? It's pretty well known that Norman Osborn lacks ethics."

Tony rubbed his hand across his face. "Yeah but they also have cutting edge technology. Not as good as SI but they're in the top ten."

Steve interjected, "You think Peter is in danger?"

Tony shook his head. "No, but only because no one knows who or what he is. I don't want Osborn anywhere near him. I don't want to risk anyone putting the pieces together. As far as I can tell people think Spider-Man is just a mutant. That he was just born with certain abilities. If anyone found out he wasn't born that way...", he looked over at Steve. "He's the closest anyone's come to a stable super soldier since the 40's. The DNA markers aren't identical but it's not hard to see what the intention was."

Steve understood Tony's concern. People had been chasing a super soldier serum for almost a century. Fortunes had been spent and many lives had been lost. He had seen first hand the lengths people would go to. "Tony, we'll make sure Peter stays away from it. If anyone understands what's at stake it's us."

Natasha looked at Steve and Tony. "Ok, you two need to promise me you won't get mad. Also, appreciate the irony that this is coming from me." She paused to make sure she had their attention. "You can't keep this from Peter. You two are intimately familiar with what happens when you hide things."

Tony and Steve both turned to stare at Natasha. "He's going to find out. Peter is a smart kid. If he finds out on his own he'll investigate. If you tell him, he'll listen. And, if he doesn't, surely between all of us we can keep him away from it." Natasha stared at the two of them and waited for their response.

Steve shrugged. “She’s probably not wrong.”

Tony sighed. He knew Natasha was right. He also knew Peter. If he got something in his head he didn't let it go. "You're underestimating him. We won't be able to stop him."

Natasha smiled. "Then we'll distract him. We've gotten more intel on the warehouse in Queens. I've been walking Steve through what we know. And.." she reached over and grabbed a plastic bag off the table. "I got a sample of what they're making. Can you analyze it?"

Tony took the bag from Natasha and studied the pills inside. "I'll let Peter help me with it tomorrow when he comes to the compound. How big is their operation?"

"Bigger than just running a small lab to manufacture designer drugs. Production is large scale and these are starting to show up everywhere. No deaths so far." She pulled up two pictures on the holoscreen. "This is the part that's bothering me more. These two are both pretty high up in Hydra's ranks. They showed up yesterday, as did a lot more security. They're supplementing the Manfredi's normal muscle."

"So this is turning into a large scale mission on the streets of New York. I'll get Rhodey to start working the channels we'll need to go through to work within the Accords and avoid getting thrown in jail." He looked over at Steve. "The pardons should go through Thursday morning. Work on getting who we need for this to the compound this weekend."

"Tony, I know you may not be ready...".

Tony cut him off. "Bring him. He's good in a fight and I'd rather have too much firepower than not enough, especially if Peter is involved." Tony paused, "When you two are planning this, make sure give Peter an assignment that won't give me a heart attack."


	12. Army of Mutants

Tony parked in what seemed to have become his normal parking space in front of Peter's school. If someone had told him a year ago that he would be picking up a high school kid on a regular basis he would have thought they were crazy. Now, there really wasn't any where else he would rather be. He had all but stopped getting Happy to pick up Peter unless it was unavoidable and those times were few and far between.

Peter opened the car door and slid into the passenger seat. "Hey Mr. Stark! Any update on the Skrulls?"

"Not much. I'll fill you in when we get to the compound. Nat did give us a homework assignment. She got a hold of the drug your dealers are making. Our job is to figure out what's in it." Tony glanced over at Peter. It wasn't often Tony put him off about talking about something. He wasn't sure if he'd pick up on it or not. Which is why he had buried it in the comment about Nat's homework assignment.

"Really? That's actually pretty cool. I've broken down substances before, but not illegal drugs."

Tony chuckled. "So the other piece of news is that the pardons should be in place tomorrow. I told Steve to start working on getting everybody to the compound this weekend. Think May will let you stay up there all weekend?"

"I think I can talk her into it. Are you sure you want me there the whole time?" Peter looked over at Mr. Stark. He still wasn't feeling overly secure about his place with the Avengers.

"Yes. All weekend. We can work on the Iron Spider this weekend too." Tony wanted Peter there when the others got there. He wanted no confusion about Peter's place on the team. If he brought him in after everyone was there some might think it was up for debate. If Peter was already there when they returned there would be no mistaking the intent. It's one of those things Pepper had drilled into him over the years. Optics meant everything.

They discussed how they wanted to analyze the drugs the rest of the way to the compound and had a general idea of what they wanted to do by the time they got there. Peter's grasp of chemistry never failed to impress Tony. "It's a good thing you're a super hero. You'd make one hell of a super villain."

Peter rolled his eyes at Tony's comment as they entered the lab. They spent the next couple hours breaking down and analyzing the samples Natasha had given them. Peter sat back in his chair looking at the screen in front of him. "I can identify everything but this." He pointed at a chemical structure on the screen. "It doesn't occur naturally, at least it hasn't been identified if it does and it doesn't have the normal markers that a synthetic compound does."

"FRIDAY, run it through everything we have. Start with SHIELD's databases." Tony sat down in the chair next to Peter's. "Any guess as to what it does?"

Peter shrugged. "No idea. You?" He saw Tony shake his head while looking at the screen. Turning his attention back to the read out of components he continued. "Here's the other thing I don't get. How much did you say Nat paid for this?"

"$20, which seems much cheaper than the last time I bought drugs. Which arguably was over a decade ago but still you'd think they'd be more expensive." Tony looked at Peter after realizing what he had said. "Incidentally that's one of those things you're not supposed to do."

"I don't think you have to worry. Advil doesn't work on me. Why would something like this?" Peter grinned at the look on Tony's face. "It costs three times that for the component parts. They're losing money."

"Which means there's another reason for distributing." Tony looked at the structure floating in front of Peter. "And, it probably has something to do with this. Ok, it'll take FRIDAY time to run everything. Let's go upstairs and grab dinner. Maybe she'll find something before we have to head back to the city."

XXXXXXXXXX

Pepper had started making sure there was actual food on Wednesday's so Peter and Tony wouldn't have an excuse to just order take out every week. Peter sat on one of the bar stools while Tony threw everything in the oven. "So what's up with the Skrulls. Have they been spotted again?"

Tony knew he wouldn't have forgotten about it so he was somewhat expecting the question. While he agreed that keeping his suspicions and fears from Peter was not a good idea, he still wasn't thrilled about having this conversation. "So, about that. I'm putting that building on your 'No Fly List'"

"But why? That's not fair." Peter knew he sounded indignant but keeping him away from it didn't make sense.

Tony put his hands on the counter and took a deep breath before looking up at Peter. "Because I'm fairly certain that building belongs to Oscorp."

"Oh." Peter frowned and looked down. They did not talk about Oscorp very much. In fact, that had talked about it once and that was it.

"Pete, I'm just worried if we pull on that thread, he'll find out who you are. While the mutations to your DNA aren't identical to Steve's, they're close enough that it isn't hard to figure out that they were working on a super soldier formula. Norman Osborn's morality and ethics make Hitler look like a Boy Scout." Tony took another deep breath. "Osborn getting anywhere near you is not an option."

"Ok." Peter looked up and locked eyes with Tony. "I get it. I don't want to pull that thread any more than you do."

"So you'll stay away from the building?" Tony was a little surprised Peter was taking this as well as he was.

"I don't like letting the Skrull thing go. But yes, I'll stay away from the building."

Relief spread through Tony. "I can't tell you how relieved I am that you're ok with this. I was worried you would push it."

Peter frowned again. "I'm not an idiot. I know how dangerous Osborn is - if he finds out who I am it puts everybody I care about at risk. I'm not happy about dropping the Skrulls and Karen will still actively scan when I'm out but I'll stay away from the building."

"That's all I'm asking." Tony smiled as the timer beeped telling them dinner was ready.

XXXXXXXXXX

FRIDAY alerted them as they were cleaning up from dinner that a possible match has been found. "FRIDAY, pull it up in here."

FRIDAY displayed a crystal formation on the screen in the living room. "The substance isolated from the sample today is a 75% match to the structure of a crystal recovered in Puerto Rico. SHIELD has it recorded in their database as a Terrigen Crystal. The crystals are thought to be of alien origin."

"Well, that explains why we didn't recognize the structure." Peter looked at the crystal displayed on the screen. "What do they think they're used for?"

Tony read through the report summary FRIDAY had pulled up on the screen. "FRIDAY, cross reference 'Inhumans'."

"Inhumans are the name given to individuals with mutated DNA. These mutations are thought to be latent until exposed to Terrigen mist."

Peter narrowed his eyes at the screen. "I don't think I like being called Inhuman."

Tony shook his head, "You're not. You're enhanced like Steve and Barnes. It's an important distinction. Your DNA wasn't mutated until it was exposed to the venom from the spider. This is talking about people born with mutations. The mist or whatever it is just triggers them." Tony looked over at Peter. "FRIDAY would have picked up on it off you had any of this Terrigen in your DNA. Right FRIDAY?"

"Yes Boss. Peter's mutated DNA does not carry any of the signatures related to Terrigen."

"See. Just your run of the mill irradiated super soldier spider." Tony smiled at the look on Peter's face.

"Great, now I'm going to have nightmares about an army of spiders dressed in BDU's carrying little guns."

Tony laughed and turned back to the screen. "So they're including a Terrigen derivative in this drug that they're selling ridiculously cheap." Tony rolled the facts around in his head. "FRIDAY, is there anything else in this structure that could give off some kind of signal?" He saw the confusion on Peter's face. "Something that if the DNA is triggered from the exposure it could identify the individual if they were scanned."

"There isn't enough data to confirm but depending on the process it is possible that a specific signature is emitted that would allow that individual to be tracked."

Peter crossed his arms and studied the screen. "That's bad, right?"

"FRIDAY, send all of this to Natasha." He dismissed the holoscreen and looked at Peter who seemed like he was still rolling ideas around. "What are you thinking?"

"If this is Hydra, they're all about taking over the world, right? If there's a way to track these Inhumans and then recruit them, they now have an army of mutants. My guess is these mutant abilities aren't things like an extra limb or that puppies find you irresistible. It's probably more along the lines of that girl that was in Germany with Captain Rogers?" Peter looked at Tony for confirmation in his line of thinking.

"Yes. Hydra would become that much harder to defeat." Tony frowned at the idea of an army of mutants. "And, her name is Wanda. You'll like her. She should be here this weekend with Vision."


	13. I Am Calm

Tony turned his head and looked at Peter who was currently bouncing on his toes. "I need you to calm down."

"I am calm." Peter thought he was doing a good job of covering up how nervous he was. He was currently fighting the urge to jump to the roof of the overhang they were standing under and retreat to the lab. Or his room. Or the gym. Really anywhere but here. Maybe he could help Pepper with something SI related.

Natasha crossed her arms and glared at the Tony and Peter. "I need both of you to calm down."

"I am calm." Tony glared back at Natasha.

"FRIDAY, what's Tony's current heart rate?" Natasha stared at Tony.

"Boss's heart rate is currently 130 beats per minute."

"It does sound a little fast." Peter frowned as he looked at Tony.

"FRIDAY, what's Peter's heart rate?" Natasha shifted her attention to Peter.

"Peter's heart rate is 90 beats per minutes."

"That's not bad." Peter responded defensively.

"Kid, your resting heart rate is 50." Tony frowned at Peter, pulling his glasses off and looking at him.

"You both need to calm down before they land which means you have about 3 minutes to get it together. Tony, the Winter Soldier is dead. They were able to remove all of his programming. Barnes isn't responsible for any of it and you need to give him a chance." 

Natasha didn't stop to let Tony respond, instead she turned to Peter. "I don't understand why you are this nervous. They're no different from myself or Steve. You didn't freak out then, why are you freaking out now?"

"The last time I saw them I webbed them both to the floor!" Panic seeped through Peter. He could easily make the roof of the overhang before Natasha could grab him. It was still an option.

"That's why you're nervous?" Tony asked incredulously.

"Never apologize for being good at your job." Natasha realized her tone had a bit more of a bite to it than she intended. She softened her approach a little. "They're both looking forward to meeting Spider-Man when he's not webbing them up. It will be fine. And, I think you'll like both of them." She saw Peter turn his head and focus on the landing pad. She realized he could probably hear the engines of the Quinjet so she turned and watched where she thought they'd make their decent. Thirty seconds later she could pick up the faint sounds of the engines. The kids' hearing was truly remarkable. She glanced to the two standing next to her to make sure they weren't going to make a run for it. Both were still firmly planted in place although it looked like they had both shifted closer to each other. Natasha smirked and turned her attention back to the landing pad.

The Quinjet descended on the pad and settled softly on its landing gear. Steve had left last night with Rhodey to make the somewhat long flight to Wakanda. Even with the Quinjets flight capabilities, Wakanda was still halfway around the world. The ramp lowered and Rhodey appeared at the opening and walked down, quickly crossing over to stand next to Tony.

"You good?" Rhodey quietly asked his friend. He knew Tony was struggling with Barnes. The logical side of Tony knew that the Winter Soldier and James Buchanan Barnes were two different individuals. The emotional side of Tony did not. Tony's emotional side typically won.

Tony looked over at Peter before glancing back at Rhodey. "Yeah, I'm good. No issues on the flight?"

Rhodey shook his head. "Easy flight. The two of you have been invited to visit Wakanda. I was instructed by T'Challa's sister to bring Iron Man and Spider-Man for a visit." He looked past Rhodey to Peter. "She's a couple years older than you and can more than keep up with the two of you in a lab."

Peter smiled and turned his attention back to the landing pad. The remaining passengers had disembarked and were heading toward them. Sam Wilson reached the group first. He dropped his bag to the ground and reached over and hugged Natasha. "Good to see you." Straightening back, he looked over at Tony. "Stark, good to see you too."

James Buchanan Barnes stopped next to Sam. Nodding to Tony, he fixed his eyes on Peter and smiled. "Still got webs?"

Peter grinned, "Still got a metal arm?" Eyes locked with Bucky, he triggered both web-shooters, shot a web at Sam's bag and yanked it up attaching it to the overhang.

Bucky laughed and held out his right hand. Peter deactivated his web-shooters and shook Bucky's hand. "Peter Parker."

"James Barnes, call me Bucky."

Sam reached over and shook Peter's hand too. "Sam Wilson. You are getting my bag down, right?"

"Right." Peter jumped up and held on to the edge of the overhang with one hand and pulled down Sam's hijacked bag, dropping it next to him. Swinging himself he released and landed next to Tony.

"Show off." Sam grumbled. "Are those nanotech?" He asked, pulling up Peter's arm.

Steve stepped forward, "Everyone can show off their new toys later. Let's get you two settled. Clint will be here in about an hour. Vision and Wanda will be here tonight."

Sam and Bucky flanked Peter, "Come on Underoos, show us where our rooms are."

Steve, Rhodey, Tony, and Natasha watched the three walk off, Peter talking a mile a minute about nanotech and Falcon's wings. Tony thought he heard Peter ask about the bird drone as they rounded the corner.

XXXXXXXXXX

Peter glanced around the room. He was sitting in the Avenger command center. With the Avengers. His hero worship had worn off over the last year but sitting here with them now was surreal. He glanced over at the screens that completely covered one wall. Different screens held different information. Persons of interest within Hydra and the Manfredi crime family. The crystal substance he and Mr. Stark had discovered the other night. The building that was also currently displayed as a three dimensional structure in the middle of the table. Steve had already caught everyone up on what Hydra and the Manfredi's were doing and what they suspected was their ultimate goal. Now they were starting to talk about actually going in. An actual mission.

"Tony, Rhodey, Vision, and Sam, you're creating a hole here and here." Steve pointed to the east wall and the north wall. "With that distraction, Natasha, Wanda, myself, and Bucky are going through the front door. Clint, you're on the northeast corner. Peter, you're on the southwest corner. No one gets in, no one gets out. Coming off the accords it is imperative that this doesn't expand out to the street."

Tony glanced over at Peter, who was sitting next to him. He was glad to see he didn't look overwhelmed. He had been worried how the kid would handle his first mission briefing. He was handling it great. He knew he shouldn't have been surprised but part of him had been dreading this moment.

"Once we're in - Tony, Rhodey, and Sam, you're inside. You're not going to have a lot of air space but we'll need the fire power. The objectives for the inside teams, containment, destruction of their supply, make it so they can't make more."

Simple


	14. Assault On Hydra

Peter perched on the edge of the roof. He could see the glint of red and gold on the side of the building and knew it was about to get loud. It was the one thing Mr. Stark had been worried about. Peter's hearing was so sensitive, there was some concern that even being on the outskirts of the fight it might be too loud. They had tweaked the Iron Spider suit and increased the suits’ ability to block noise. If he needed to hear better, Karen could reduce it back but Mr. Stark had insisted on starting with it higher than normal.

He saw the repulsor blast and knew it was starting. Keeping his eyes trained on the building he saw two of the three teams entering the building. Rhodey and Sam were on the other side. "Karen, monitor all traffic within 3 blocks. Foot and vehicle." The two sides of the building that he was responsible for included the underground parking.

He could hear the com chatter but it wasn't nearly as much as he expected. Even being apart for almost a year, they still worked like a well oiled machine. He could hear weapons fire but nothing that was overly concerning.

"Peter, a distress call was sent from the building." Karen piped into his ear.

"Ok, let me know if you see anything headed this way." Peter watched the building. He could see flares of gunfire periodically in the windows but it seemed to be going well.

"Peter, there are two vehicles approaching. 3 blocks out. At their rate of speed they'll be here in less than 1 minute. They're approaching from the west so there's a 90% chance that they'll try to enter the building from the underground parking."

"Ok. Put it up on my HUD. Let me know if the vehicles are armored. And get me a direct line to Clint." He flicked his wrist and started swinging toward the building.

"What's up kid." Clint's voice echoed in his ear.

"There are two vehicles approaching from the west. Karen thinks they'll probably enter from the underground parking. I'll take care of them but I want to let them get into the deck first so I can just keep them there." Peter landed on one of the support beams in the parking area.

"Ok. Need help?"

"No, just get ready if they end up at the front door instead." Peter knew he was taking a risk but his gut told him it was the right move. Two SUVs entered the underground parking. 

"Windows are bulletproof and body of the vehicles are armor plating." Karen confirmed in his ear. Peter flicked both wrists and fired a series of web grenades at the doors, effectively sealing them. Firing another volley he sealed up the rear hatches and the sun roofs. Landing on the hood of one of them he looked at the four men trapped inside their vehicle. They immediately started firing automatic weapons at the windshield. "Yeah, that's not going to work." It dawned on him that they could still move the vehicles. "Karen, what do we have to stop the engines?" He could feel the engine rev beneath him.

"Taser webs. Should disrupt the electrical." Firing straight down he hit the hood he had been standing on with a taser web and followed it with another shot at the other hood. Triggering the waldoes he punctured the front tires on both vehicles. Both vehicles sufficiently disabled, he stepped back and fired another volley of web grenades at the doors to make sure they held. Stepping back further he looked at the two vehicles. They seemed sealed up. And the people inside seemed really mad. He heard repulsors behind him and he turned around to see Iron Man and Black Widow headed into the deck.

Natasha saw the vehicles and started laughing. Waking up to the front he looked into the windshield. Gunfire erupted again which only prompted Natasha to wave at them.

"Kid, you ok?" Tony walked over and stood in front of Peter. FRIDAY had been monitoring Peter throughout the operation so he knew he wasn't hurt.

Peter gave him a thumbs up. "I'm good."

Natasha looked over at them. "SHIELD will be her shortly for clean up. Quinjet will be on the roof in 2 minutes. I'll keep our friends company until Fury gets here."

Tony looked at Peter. "Want a ride?"

Peter shook his head. "I'll climb."

Tony waited for Peter to exit the deck and start scampering up the side of the building before taking off for the roof. The team was standing along the edges, out of the way. The Quinjet landed and lowered the ramp. Peter flipped over the side to land next to Clint as Tony landed next to him.

Steve walked over to Peter. "You good?"

"Yes sir." Peter looked around at everyone. No one looked overly hurt. Karen had asked FRIDAY about Tony so Peter knew he just had a couple bruises.  
Steve smiled. "Good. I'm going to go check out your handiwork. Natasha is still laughing." He looked over at Clint. "Can you come back and pick us up after you drop everyone at the compound?"

Clint nodded. "Seeing as how the kid got all the action I might as well do something useful." He walked toward the ramp to take over for FRIDAY. It was helpful when an AI could fly for you but it was always better to have a human pilot in the cockpit.

The rest of the team walked up the ramp. Tony and Peter filed in at the end. Once on board Tony pulled Peter to the back away from everyone else. Triggering his mask to retract he watched Peter do the same. He studied Peter's face for any sign of an issue. "You're sure you're ok. No broken bones, no bruises?"

Peter nodded. "I'm good. Never even had to duck a punch."

Tony reached over and scruffed Peter's hair. "You did good Pete."

XXXXXXXXXX

The ride back on the Quinjet was incredibly fast. What was a 45 minute drive normally was more like a 10 minute flight. Everyone unloaded and headed for their respective quarters. Clint took off to pick up Natasha and Steve. Tony steered Peter to the lab, Peter hadn't stopped talking since they got off the Quinjet. They really hadn't come up with a good place to store the Iron Spider so they just kept it in the lab. They kept playing around with a containment vessel but hadn't settled on anything that worked the way they wanted it to. Tony's armor retracted into the arc reactor and Iron Spider safely tucked away, Tony and Peter got back into the elevator. Peter stopped mid-sentence when he realized they weren't headed to their floor. "Where are we going."

"Post mission debrief." Tony smiled at Peter's groan. "Don't worry, it's not what you think." The elevator doors opened on the main common area. The common area on the floor where the rest of the Avengers now had rooms. The floor that had been all but vacant until this weekend. Peter and Tony stepped out of the elevator and were immediately pulled into the main room. Rhodey handed a bottle of water to Tony and a Gatorade to Peter. Picking his beer back up, Rhodey walked with them over to the sofas. Sam and Bucky both had a beer in their hands and were rehashing part of the operation. Bucky slid over and made room for Peter. Sitting down Peter realized very quickly that celebrating after an Avenger victory was vastly different than celebrating after an academic decathlon victory, which was really the closest thing he had to compare. It was not close at all. Bucky and Sam made fun of each other. Tony and Rhodey were comparing notes on how the suits performed. Wanda was giving Vision a play by play of what she had done and seen while they were separated. Most of them had an adult beverage in their hands. It seems like besides him, Tony and Vision were the only two not drinking. He felt movement behind him and Natasha wrapped her arms around his and Bucky's shoulders and ducked her head between them. "Fury asked that if Spider-Man is going to continue to leave webs all over sites SHIELD has to clean up, if he could please give him something that will dissolve them faster." She glanced over at Tony. "Those were not his exact words. I cleaned them up a little."

Peter smiled. "I think I can come up with something."  
Steve walked around the sofa and settled into the chair on the other side. "Everyone did a great job tonight. That may have been one of our most successful missions. Fury has a lot of intel to sift through."

Clint, perched on the back of one of the other sofas looked at Peter and Natasha. "I want to know what the kid did to the cars that you found so entertaining."

"He webbed the doors shut. They looked like cocoons. Windshields were bulletproof and the cars were armor plated so they couldn't break their way off." Natasha pushed herself off the back of the sofa. "Fury is still waiting for the webs to dissolve. Meanwhile, the two vehicles are surrounded by SHIELD agents. They think that one group completely exhausted their rounds trying to get through the windshield. Easiest capture SHIELD will probably ever have."

Tony and Steve ended the party around 1am by reminding everyone that the actual mission debrief was at 8am sharp.

XXXXXXXXXX

Peter slid into a chair in the command center. Tony appeared a few minutes later and placed two donuts in front of him and a steel mug. Peering inside, Peter saw he had given him a glass of milk. Tony sat his own mug down which Peter knew contained a large amount of coffee. They were by no means the first to arrive but just about everyone else was still making their way in. Steve and Natasha looked like they had been up for hours already. Peter realized they probably had been when information started popping up on the screens again.

"SHIELD performed a similar raid on a west coast facility simultaneous with ours. Ours was a little more efficient but both were successful. Fury is actively looking for additional facilities within the US. If they come across any, we will more than likely get pulled into those raids." Steve paused and looked around the room. "Supplies in both facilities have been destroyed, although the analysis is that a large amount has already been distributed. SHIELD is still working on how Hydra was planning on tracing people who have reactions. They're hoping some of the data they recovered from both facilities will shed some light on that."

Wanda sat forward, "Are we really ok with SHIELD having access to these people? They've proven that they can be infiltrated."

Peter turned his head when Tony spoke up. "I might have another option. I'll let you know if I get anywhere with it."

Steve nodded and Peter had the distinct impression that Steve knew what Tony was talking about. Sam put his coffee down. "What about outside the U.S."

"They've identified one facility in London. Fury is working out the logistics but we will probably be making the trip sometime this week. They don't think Security Services can handle the operation by themselves considering how much resistance the west coast team faced."

Natasha stepped beside Steve. "Video feeds have been uploaded. Review and be ready to provide comments." She paused and looked directly at Sam. "Constructive comments...at this afternoon's training."

Steve spoke up again, "Oh, and if anyone is curious on the standings of number of enemy combatants incapacitated - Natasha had the most with 10." He paused, then added "Second place, Peter with 8."  
Laughter erupted from the table with a lot of "Way to show off on your first outing" and "welcome to the team".

Peter sat back with a grin on his face. People started filing out, most clapping him on the back on the way out. Natasha, Steve, and Tony were the only ones remaining.

Natasha sat on the table next to Peter. "We thought we'd walk you through all of the video feeds, yours included, so you could get a feel for what the rest of us were doing. Tony said he's done this with you on training exercises."

Peter nodded. He hated reviewing feeds. He understood why they did it, but it always left him feeling like he hadn't been good enough. "When?"

"Preferably today. You go back to the city tonight, right?" Steve stepped next to Natasha. "What's your schedule the rest of the week? Having you on containment worked even better than anticipated." He glanced over at Tony. "If you're both ok with it, I'd like you to be in London. I know we're kind of pushing the envelope on taking you across international borders but one of the stipulations on the Accords is solely focused on making sure fights don't spill out into the street."

Peter looked up at Steve. "You'd bring me to London? That would be awesome!"

"Or, how about we talk about it and figure out if it's something we think your aunt will be okay with? And, he's out of school on Wednesday for conferences. We can go through feeds before lunch." Tony settled back in his chair waiting to see if Steve or Natasha would push back.

"Sounds good. I'll schedule a training session for early afternoon. That way you can get some training in before you head back." Natasha pushed off the table, ruffling Peter's hair as she walked out of the room


	15. School Pickup

Convincing May had been a monumental task. Tony had even started questioning himself as to whether or not taking Peter to London was a good idea. Ultimately it was Peter who had delivered the coup de grace to May's already crumbling resolve. He reminded her that he was much better off as part of a team than he was operating solo and that he now had nine superhero's backing him up. Which wasn't much of an exaggeration. Tony realized when Natasha volunteered to pick Peter up at school that the kid had her completely won over. He got the feeling that there wasn't much Natasha wouldn't do for the kid. It left him with an odd feeling. He had never been one to share so it somewhat bothered him that he was now having to split time with the rest of the team. He kept reminding himself that the entire point of bringing the team back had been so that Peter would have more people in his life to help him navigate being a superhero. He just hadn't been ready for the affect it would have on him. Tony missed having Peter to himself.

XXXXXXXXXX

Natasha leaned against the side of her car and watched kids pour out the front door of Peter's school. She caught sight of Peter walking down the steps flanked by a boy that she thought was probably his friend Ned and a girl that she was absolutely sure was MJ. She chuckled to herself when she saw Peter grimace when he saw her. Ned on the other hand completely froze. MJ just looked curious. And determined. She was pulling Peter and Ned over to Natasha's car. The little bit that Peter had talked about MJ, Natasha was pretty sure that she'd like her. The fact that MJ knew who she was and still walked full steam spoke volumes.

The trio reached the car and Peter hissed, "Nat, what are you doing?"

"I'm picking you up from school. Tony had a meeting that he couldn't reschedule." Natasha gave Peter an innocent smile.

"No...what are you doing out of the car? People will see you." Peter's voice had a tone of borderline panic.

MJ stared at Peter with a 'you're an idiot' look. Turning back to Natasha she sized her up, then extended her hand. "I'm MJ."

Natasha shook MJ's hand. "MJ, it's nice to meet you. Peter has talked about you. Medical webs were a genius idea." Natasha turned and looked at Ned who stammered out a whispered, "You're Black Widow."  
Natasha smiled. "Or you can just call me Natasha or Nat." Aware that the group was getting stares from the rest of the student body, Natasha was in no hurry to move. Peter, however, wanted in the car as quickly as possible.

"Natasha, move."

Natasha smiled. "Peter, absolutely no one knows who I am. The more you freak out the more attention you draw."

MJ shrugged. "She's right. No one is actually watching her. They're watching you."

Peter glanced over at MJ. "You're not helping."

MJ shrugged. "Natasha, it was nice to meet you." She leaned over and kissed Peter on the cheek. "Be careful." She whispered in his ear before she grabbed Ned's arm and pulled him away.

"I like her." Natasha pushed herself off her car and walked around to the drivers side. Peter was inside with the door securely closed before she had even opened her door. Sliding in she adjusted her sunglasses and fastened her seat belt.

"What the hell was that?" Peter twisted in the seat to look at her. "How am I supposed to keep Spider-Man a secret if Black Widow shows up at my school?"

Natasha pulled away from the curb. "I can guaranty that no one knows who I am. Consider this a lesson in flying under the radar. If you act like you're supposed to be there and that's there's nothing out of the ordinary no one pays attention."

Peter let out a growl under his breath which just made Natasha smile. "Where is Mr. Stark anyway?" The 'he doesn't do this' was emphatically implied.

"Tony and Steve are meeting with the non-SHIELD option for the newly created mutants." She glanced down at his backpack. "Do you have homework?"

"Yes, Physics and History. Physics won't be a problem, History might be." Peter pulled his Physics binder out and flipped to a page and started writing.

"What do you have to do in History?" Natasha glanced down at his paper. She understood Physics but it wasn't her favorite subject. She knew Peter wouldn't have a problem finishing it.

"Five page paper on a battle from World War II."

Natasha laughed. "You can do it on the flight over. Bucky and Steve can give you details you won't find in a book."

Peter grinned. It was easy to forget that he knew two people who were active participants in World War II.

XXXXXXXXXX

Natasha pulled into the front drive way. "Mission briefing in 30 minutes. I'm going to stop by the hanger and make sure the Quinjet is ready."

Peter opened the car door and saw Tony, Steve, and a man in a wheelchair coming out the front doors. Getting out, he leaned his head back down. "That's the guy they were meeting with about the mutant situation?"

Natasha looked over at the man who was stopped outside a town car. It had been adapted to allow his chair to roll in without assistance. She watched him shake Tony and Steve's hands before the door shut and it drove away. "I think so, but I don't know who he is." She looked over at Peter. "See you in 30 minutes." Peter shut the door and waited for her to pull off before walking over to Tony. Steve waved as he walked back into the building.

"How much homework do you have?" Tony asked, glancing at his backpack.

"Physics and History." Peter smirked, "I did some of the physics on the ride up. Natasha suggested I work on history on the flight over." He continued when Tony looked at him questioningly. "Because it's on World War II and thought I could probably get some help." Peter grinned when Tony laughed.

"Oh, they're going to love that." Tony grabbed Peter's shoulder as he herded him through the front doors. "The plan is to take off in about 2 hours and get there in time for the mission. We'll do our thing and leave right after. So no sightseeing."


	16. London Calling

"He could do the incursion into Munich."

Steve shook his head. "Part of that is still classified."

"How is that still classified. It's been, what, almost 80 years? At some point the intelligence is no longer viable." Frustration bubbled in Bucky's voice.

"I don't think it's the intel on that one. It's more the incredibly disturbing science experiment. How about that one in the French country side?" Steve countered.

Peter looked over at Mr. Stark with a resigned look on his face. At the rate they were going his history report was never going to get done. They were already an hour into the flight and they'd yet to settle on a battle.

Bucky shook his head. "That one had the, well, you know. I don't think it's appropriate."

Tony finally took pity on Peter. "Do the Allied Rescue. It's a good story and all of it was used as PR during the war. Nothing classified. Nothing inappropriate."

Steve looked at Bucky and shrugged. "Ok, what do you need to know?"

Relief ran through Peter. He spent the next two hours firing off questions and typing on a tablet. By the time they were an hour out he had at least the outline for his paper. He could feel the Quinjet start to descend so he stuffed everything back into his backpack.

They had reviewed the plan both prior to leaving as well as right before landing. Like before, Clint and Peter were on the outside with the sole job of containment. Keeping everyone from leaving and keeping more from coming in. The incursion teams were similar to the plan from Queens with the addition of local assistance, although the target building was in a more densely populated area so they couldn't make quite as much noise has they had in Queens.

Peter activated the Iron Spider as the ramp let down. Following the team down the ramp, they were taken to a command center that had been set up near the location. Peter and Clint had already decided on their locations. Both retreated to their positions ahead of the other three incursion teams.

XXXXXXXXXX

"Hey, Kid? Can you see the Underground entrance from where you are?" Clint's voice broke the silence as Peter looked down on the street below.

"That's their version of the subway, right?" He paused while he scanned the unfamiliar street. "Yeah, it's a half a block to the west."

"Ok, do you see a group of four men?"

Peter zoomed in on the groups below. "Tall one with a black jacket in the front?"

"That's them. Can Karen scan them? Something seems off."

Karen piped into Peter's ear. "If you can get closer I can try to scan for weapons or explosives."

"Hang on, I've got to get closer." Peter flicked his wrist and shot a web to the closest building. Staying in the shadows he worked his way closer to the Underground entrance and stuck himself to the side of a building. "Karen? Anything?" He could tell from the com chatter that the breach into the warehouse had started. Tapping the Spider Drone on his chest he released it and set it high enough to watch the area for additional support arriving or Hydra agents trying to escape. Karen finished her scans as the four individuals entered the Underground entrance.

"Peter, all four are carrying weapons. Facial recognition has a partial match to a known Hydra agent."

"Clint...". Peter shifted his focus back to the four men disappearing through the entrance.

"I'm on my way. Do not go in by yourself."

Fighting the urge to tell Clint he didn't need a babysitter he moved closer to the entrance. From the new angle he could still see the men inside. Com chatter from the others and knew they were making their way into the lower levels of the building, which was not the original plan. The intel they had received from the local authorities was that the labs and most of the resistance was on the main levels of the building. He glanced over at the building the Avengers were in the process of working their way through then back at the Underground entrance. "Karen, can you access building plans."

"Searching. What are you specifically looking for Peter?"

"An entrance into the building from the underground." Peter glanced down as he felt Clint land on the sidewalk below. Peter did not understand how Clint moved around like he did. Dropping down he landed beside him as Karen started reporting her findings.  
"The building is too old to have plans I can access but the Underground plans show that the access tunnels are adjacent to where a basement might be for the building. There is a strong probability that there is an access point into the building."

Clint tapped his earpiece to broadcast to the rest of the team as he started moving toward the Underground entrance. "We're following 4 armed targets into the Underground. They may have access into the building."

Peter heard Steve's reply of "Understood" quickly followed up by Mr. Stark, "When you say 'we', I'm assuming you mean Underoos is with you?"

Clint glanced over at Peter and smiled, "Affirmative". Tapping his earpiece again to turn it off he paused and studied the flow of people coming in and out. "Any ideas how to get in without causing a scene?"

Schematics of the Underground popped up on Peter's HUD. "There's a service hatch into the access tunnels but one of us needs to keep an eye on our friends."

"Well you're bright red, blue, and gold and I have a bow. Both of us kind of stand out."

"No one ever looks up. I'll follow them in, you head to the service hatch." Peter climbed up the wall and made his way to the entrance. Getting through the opening was the trickiest part but he was able to find a shadowy corner.

"What are you doing?"

Peter could tell that Mr. Stark had opened a direct channel to him. "I'm following the bad guys. What are you doing." Peter was pretty sure the sarcasm wouldn't be appreciated.

Tony chose to ignore the comment. "You and Clint split up."

"It made sense." Peter skirted the main area and stayed in the alcoves of the loading area. The four men were walking along the edge. Karen displayed the appropriate schematics across Peter's HUD. There was a door to the maintenance tunnel and the men seemed to be headed straight for it. One of them reached up and touched an earpiece in their ear. Peter heard gunfire through the audio connection with Mr. Stark. "Are you being shot at?" He heard a repulsor fire in the background.

"Yes. Pete, do not follow them into an enclosed area without backup."

Peter heard the audio flip back to the team channel and heard the sound of weapons fire again, this time louder since it wasn't muted by the Iron Man suit. Karen had added identification dots on his HUD. Clint was entering the tunnel from the street. The rest of the team was identified at a higher elevation. The men opened the door and slipped through it. Peter caught the door with a web before it closed. "Clint, headed your way." Scampering over to the door he lowered himself enough to get through the door then retreated to the ceiling again. An outline illuminated on the building scan, which was now limited to the tunnel they were in and the lower levels of the warehouse next door. The outline showed an access door about halfway between Clint and Peter. Their targets were most definitely headed towards the door. Knowing Karen could mute his voice so it wouldn't be heard outside of the mask he opened a channel to Clint. "Door right hand side." He heard two clicks in his ear so he knew Clint had heard him. He reverted back to Karen. "Can you show me the targets in the warehouse?"

"No. The building walls are shielded and my sensors can't penetrate them to perform a scan. I'm only able to pick up the other Avengers because of their transponders."

Before he could flip back to Clint to find out what the plan was the door opened from the warehouse side. Peter could see three more men through the door. Behind him he could hear the access door open.

"What are you doing in here? This is a restricted area." A police officer had opened the door and entered the passageway shining a light through the tunnel.

The four men turned and two of them fired down the tunnel at the police officer. Peter flipped off the ceiling and landed between the targets and the police officer, firing webs at two of them. He felt a barrage of bullets hit his chest and shoulder. He knew none of them had penetrated the armor but it still was enough force to knock him back. He could hear the whiz of arrows hitting targets and vaguely thought to himself that apparently this was the plan. Firing more webs he grabbed the weapons out of two more targets hands and webbed them to the ceiling. Dots blipped out on his HUD as they were taken off threat status by either himself or Clint. He felt another bullet his his shoulder and turned around. "I'm one of the good guys! Stop shooting me!" He fired a web and grabbed the police officers gun and webbed it to the side. Turning his attention back to the fight he fired web grenades wrapping up another target. Focusing on the red targets, Peter kept firing web grenades and yanking weapons out of people hands until all of the dots on his HUD were eliminated. There had been more than 3 targets on the other side of the door.

"Clear?" Clint was standing in tunnel opposite Peter. Cocooned lumps as well as ones with arrows sticking out of them littered the floor.

Peter checked the HUD again. He could see the dots representing the rest of the team moving around on the floor above. All of the dots in his and Clint's level had been neutralized. "Clear."

He could hear the rest of the team in the distance and realized it wasn't coming through his com. Checking the HUD he saw half of the dots moving down. A few moments later half of the team appeared in the basement of the warehouse. Clint and Peter stepped through the door and over some of the cocoons and met them in the middle of the room.

Tony retracted his helmet and mask. "Are those bullets?"

Peter looked down at his chest. Most of the bullets had been deflected by the armor but two of them were embedded. Peter pulled them out, "Yes. I think there's one in my shoulder too." He twisted around trying to feel for the bullet. He could hear Mr. Stark's exasperated sigh and felt him push gently on his shoulder to twist him around.

"There's two." Tony pulled out one of them and inspected it. "You're going to be bruised."

Steve walked over to the duo. "Tony, you, Peter, Vision, and Wanda head back to the Quinjet." He looked over at Natasha who had just entered the room. "We'll finish up here."

Tony activated the helmet and mask again. "Make sure you tell them they have a leak."

XXXXXXXXXX

As soon as they were back on the Quinjet, Peter and Tony retracted the suits. "FRIDAY, scan Peter for broken bones."

Peter probably could have saved FRIDAY the effort. He definitely thought he had at least two cracked ribs and something was going on with his shoulder. They hadn't bothered him until they were about halfway to the Quinjet.

"Peter has several cracked ribs and a fracture in his scapula."

Tony frowned. The ribs didn't worry him. As long as they weren't in danger of puncturing a lung they'd probably be fine by morning. The shoulder was a problem. Peter put an incredible amount of strain on his shoulders every time he swung anywhere. "FRIDAY, suggestions for the shoulder?"

"Immobilize until we reach the compound so the doctors can make sure there isn't additional damage to the muscles."

Tony reached over to the cabinet on the wall and rummaged around until he found a sling. "FRIDAY, let Dr. Cho know. Tell her if she needs to bring someone in she has approval."

Peter looked at the sling. "I don't think it needs to be immobilized." Usually he just went to sleep and woke up healed. A sling was overkill.

Tony fastened the sling around Peter and gently slid his arm into the sling. "It does need to be immobilized. You use your shoulders more than any other part of your body except maybe your brain. So, unless you're telling me you're planning on giving up swinging around New York...you're in a sling until a doctor looks at it."

Peter looked at his arm and realized that Mr. Stark had tightened the sling so tight he couldn't move it. "How am I supposed to finish my report like this?"

Vision turned around from the cockpit. He had been going through preflight with Wanda. "Peter, do you have a copy of another paper you have written?"

Peter nodded. With one hand he tried to pull his phone out of his backpack. Tony finally took the backpack from him, retrieved the phone and unlocked it. Opening his school apps he pulled a paper from the history folder and handed it to Vision. He looked back at Peter. "IV. Now.”


	17. Sling Confinement

Peter was asleep before they left British airspace. Tony swapped his IV out when the first one finished. The team was in various post mission positions. Clint, Natasha, and Steve were filling out paperwork. Vision had completed Peter's paper and was now talking to Wanda. Sam and Rhodey were in the cockpit. Barnes was on the floor sitting against the bulkhead. Tony was sitting in a seat at the head of the cot Peter was stretched out on, checking the IV periodically.

"Is he ok?" Bucky asked quietly.

"The impact of the bullets fractured some ribs and his scapula. Sleep is how he heals." Tony checked the IV and glanced back over at Barnes, who looked genuinely concerned.

"The suit doesn't protect him from bullets?"

"In order for it to be flexible enough for him to move the way he does, it has to be fairly thin. It'll deflect most bullets but a couple of the shots were from less than three feet and were armor piercing rounds." Tony studied Barnes. He had noticed aver the last week that Peter and Barnes had become almost friends. Maybe friends wasn't quite the right word. Older brother? Tony wasn't sure but it left him feeling a little unsettled. It was becoming impossible to hold a grudge against Barnes because Peter liked him so much.

"Vibranium would help disperse the energy from the impact." Bucky shifted against the bulkhead. "T'Challa uses it in his suit. His sister would probably give you some if she knew it was for Spider-Man. She's seen him on the internet."

Tony had thought about Vibranium but he hadn't been able to get it to work with existing metals. And he definitely didn't have access to enough to make a full suit. It was worth exploring. Peter shifted under that hand that Tony had unconsciously placed on his chest. Tony could also feel the Quinjet start to descend. Time to wake the Spiderling.

XXXXXXXXXX

Peter grumbled his way to MedBay. He still didn't understand why he couldn't just go to his room and sleep. He was confident that he would be fine in the morning. Dr. Cho and Mr. Stark were not.

Dr. Cho pulled out a device and imaged the soft tissue in Peter's shoulder. Tony was immensely glad they had the technology and that Peter wasn't faced with dealing with an MRI machine. He wasn't sure how the kid would react to an enclosed space.

"You've definitely got tears in the muscle tissues." She applied a thick bandage to Peter's shoulder, then refit the sling.

Peter wasn't sure how it was possible but his arm was even more immobilized than before. He could tell that the bandage wasn't a normal bandage. "What's the bandage for?"

"It's a cortisone mixture. It'll help with the muscle repair. The best thing for you is to let your body heal as quickly as possible. I don't think you need another IV. Maybe eat something and go to sleep. We'll re-evaluate when you wake up." Dr. Cho looked over at Tony, anticipating his question. "Cortisone should be fine for Spiders but have FRIDAY get me if anything feels off."

Tony steered Peter to the elevator and up to their floor. He was incredibly glad that Pepper was on the west coast. It was 4am and he was bringing Peter home in a sling. She would have killed him. "What do you want to eat?" Peter glared at him with a look that Tony knew meant 'How in the hell am I supposed to eat like this' without him opening his mouth. Tony grabbed a protein bar out of the cabinet and opened it before handing it to the kid.

Peter ate the bar, as well as the second one that was handed to him. "Can I go to bed now?" He deposited the wrapper in the trash can and turned around and looked at Mr. Stark.

"Do you need help?" Tony knew the answer was going to be no and that Peter would more than likely just kick off his shoes and fall asleep in his clothes.

Peter shook his head and turned to retreat to his bedroom. He paused and looked back, "Sorry I'm being a jerk. I'm just tired."

Tony smiled. "I'm used to hurt and tired Spider-Man now. I'll see you when you wake up."

XXXXXXXXXX

Peter tried stretching as he slowly returned to the land of the living only to get an immediate reminder that his arm wasn't movable. Muttering unintelligible expletives, he pushed himself up with his free hand and swung his feet off the side of the bed. "FRIDAY, what time is it?"

"It is 1:30pm."

Peter groaned and stood up. His ribs felt better. He couldn't tell about his shoulder because he couldn't move it. Nor could he get the sling off by himself. After briefly attempting to not look like he had just rolled out of bed he gave up and headed for the kitchen. He wanted to take a shower and he wanted the stupid sling off.

Tony looked up and fought back a laugh. Peter looked like he was in an even worse mood than he was when they got back from London. He made a mental note that even a halfway out of commission spider made for a grumpy teenager.

"Can you take this off?" Peter ground the words out as he picked up the donut Mr. Stark had put in front of him. His left hand wasn't entirely useless. He was actually somewhat ambidextrous but the sling just put him off balance. He bit into the donut trying not to get crumbs everywhere.

"I'll take it off but Dr. Cho has to look at your shoulder before you do anything else."

Peter looked hopeful that his captivity was coming to an end. He shoved the rest of the donut in his mouth and turned so Mr. Stark could release him from his imprisonment.

"FRIDAY, ask Dr. Cho if she can look at Peter up here."

Peter glanced over at Mr. Stark as his arm was released. He was thrilled he didn't have to walk through the compound in his current state. He knew the unruly curls made him look younger than he actually was and it was the last thing he felt like dealing with. Trying to get them under control with one hand was impossible.

Tony slid the box of donuts in front of Peter and watched him demolish half of them before Dr. Cho stepped off the elevator.

"Peter, you should know you're in a very small group of people that I make house calls for." Dr. Cho set a bag on the counter and pulled out the same device she had used earlier. Removing the bandage she inspected the skin before starting to image his shoulder. "Ok, the muscle looks like it's healing fine. The bone is almost healed too." She looked at Peter's face that was literally begging her to skip the sling. "You can stay out of the sling for the rest of today but you have to come see me before you go back to the city. If it doesn't look like it's making progress you're back in the sling."

Relief spread across Peter's face. He was free of the sling. "It'll be fine. I'll take it easy the rest of the day."

Dr. Cho scrutinized him. "I'm writing you an excuse for PE the rest of the week and, here's the part you're not going to like...no Spider-Man until the weekend."

Peter's face fell slightly. He was out of the sling but he was also grounded from Spider-Man. "If it's healed by the time I go back to the city can I go out earlier than Saturday?"

Dr. Cho held her ground...sort of. "Let's see how it looks tonight."

XXXXXXXXXX

Despite Mr. Stark's irrational fear that Peter would hurt his shoulder, Peter managed to shower and feel somewhat human without dying or at least maiming himself. He walked back out to the common area somewhat expecting Mr. Stark to still be there. "FRIDAY, where is Mr. Stark?"

"Boss is in his office."

Peter frowned to himself. He knew he had been pretty miserable to be around but he had been kind of hoping that Mr. Stark would be available. As much as he loved hanging out with the Avengers he really missed just hanging out with Mr. Stark.

"Peter, I believe Boss would not be opposed to you joining him in his office. I think he's doing, as you have both started calling it 'adult homework'"

Peter grinned and headed down the hall towards Mr. Stark's office. The door was open so he hesitantly walked through it and paused.

Tony heard Peter push the door open and smiled to himself, glancing up he nodded his head towards the chair he had pulled up to the other side of his desk. He watched Peter sink into the chair and pick up the first proposal from the stack that was neatly stacked in front of him.

XXXXXXXXXX

Rhodey walked down the hall toward Tony's office. He paused in the hallway when he heard the distinct sound of laughter and a lot of tech talk. He smiled and debated walking away but Steve would kill him if he didn't return with Tony and Peter. They had put off the debriefing until now because quite honestly none of them enjoyed staying up all night. Speaking for himself, he was just too damn old to pull all-nighters. He rapped his knuckles on the frame of the door and drew the attention of Peter and Tony. "Debrief in fifteen. FRIDAY ordered take out for dinner. Steve thought we'd eat while we go through it."

Tony nodded, "We'll be down in a few minutes." Rhodey nodded and retreated back down the hall. "Debrief should only take an hour or so, then we'll stop by and see Dr. Cho. Once we find out how your shoulder is, I'll drive you back to the city."

"My shoulder feels fine. I think you're overreacting." Peter divided his papers between the ones he finished and the ones he hadn't and stood up.

"Maybe. Look, it's supposed to rain the next couple days anyway. You hate swinging in bad weather." Tony did not add that he also didn't like the idea of Peter swinging in bad weather because he figured the kid would have focused on that and not the diversion he was offering. "Take MJ to the movies. Be a teenager for a change."


	18. Overload

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **The next three chapters are kind of orphan chapters. They are just what comes next in the overall saga but they’re not really tied into this story. Maybe I should have just posted them as one shots but here we are...**
> 
> **Comments are always appreciated it!**

Peter, MJ, and Ned sat at the end of one of the bleachers. Coach Wilson was explaining the finer points of Lacrosse. Peter was fairly certain that someone would get hit over the head with a stick before the end of class.

Ned landed over and whispered, "You couldn't talk Dr. Cho into extending your excuse for PE?"

"I'm not going to ask her to lie about an injury. Besides, my shoulder is fine." Peter shifted on the bleacher to avoid Flash's foot that was currently being driven into his lower back.

MJ turned around and gave Flash a look that apparently scared him because Peter heard him gulp and the foot disappeared from his back. "If we're going to be forced to play this game we should play it the way the Native Americans played it. It lasted for days and more often than not resulted in death or at least maiming. They saw it as a way to toughen up their warriors."

"Yeah, because we need to give Flash and his friends an excuse to...". Peter paused mid-sentence. His spidey sense fired on all cylinders driving all of his other senses to high alert. A moment later they heard a loud bang come from the direction of the chemistry lab. Peter shoved Ned off the end of the bleacher and pulled MJ as he leapt off the side behind Ned. Pushing them both behind him and securely underneath the bleachers he looked around for the threat. Everyone else in their class had either dove off the bleachers or had flattened out on the floor. Peter listened for anything that would tell him what the threat was and where it was coming from. He heard the fire suppression system go off in the chem lab and then the smell hit him. He ducked his face into his shirt and turned to look at MJ and Ned. Apparently the smell hadn't reached them yet because MJ had a look of confusion on her face.

Ned tapped his arm, "As cool as those are, you probably don't need anyone to see them."

Peter glanced down and saw that both web shooters had formed from their nanobot housing. He glanced back to the main gym and saw the door open and flood of students and teachers enter. Then the smell hit everyone.

Principal Morita's voice echoed from the intercom. "There has been an accident in the chemistry lab. There is no danger but all students and faculty should report to the gym for early dismissal."

Peter retracted the web-shooters and covered his nose with his sleeve. "Ugh, what is that, Thiol?"

"Or, what the rest of us would call sulfur." MJ glanced around at the students filing into the gym and then back at Peter. "The smell isn't that bad. The chem lab is up two floors."

Peter pulled his shirt further over his nose and mouth. "Senses...". His head was starting to pound and it was way too bright in the gym.

Principal Morita walked into the gym with a bull horn and announced to the students and faculty. "Your parents are in the process of being contacted and will be arriving to pick you up shortly."

After a while, parents started walking into the gym. Ned's name was called over the loudspeaker and the trio saw Mrs. Leeds standing by the door. Ned turned to MJ and Peter. "Sorry guys, wish I could take you with me."

MJ and Peter watched Ned leave and retreated backwards. The gym was loud and chaotic. MJ turned around, expecting Peter to be next to her but found him crouched on the floor, his shirt completely over his head. MJ crouched down and reached over to touch his shoulder but he flinched back. "Ok, you need to get out of here." Ignoring the flinch, she pulled him up and pushed him toward the locker rooms. There was a supply room between the two rooms that she knew had an exit into the hallway. Once out of the gym she guided Peter to a classroom the furthest away from the chemistry lab and the gym. Once inside, she looked at Peter who was still covering his head with his arms and shirt. "I don't know what to do."

Peter made his way over to a corner and sank against the wall. Even though the pressure of the wall made all of his nerve endings seem like they were on fire, the pressure helped. His head hurt so bad he couldn't think straight. It wasn't quite as bad as it had been right after he had been bitten but it was pretty close.

MJ followed him to the corner. "Peter, what do you need?"

Peter fumbled with the band on his watch. Finally getting it off he handed it to her. "Don't hit panic. He'll flip out." The words came out as a whisper but to Peter it sounded like he was screaming.

MJ took the watch and stared at it. The face had lit up when Peter had taken it off and a spider emblem flashed across the screen. It finally dawned on her what Peter wanted her to do. She had seen him work the watch enough that she knew Karen was always on. "Karen, call Tony Stark."

XXXXXXXXXX

Tony walked into the classroom and crossed over to corner where Peter was huddled. MJ was sitting in front of him. He crouched next to her. "Pete, come on, we're getting out of here."

Peter moved his head in what he thought might have been something similar to a nod. Even that small movement made his nerve endings ignite. As much as he wanted to get away from the smell and the noise and the light, the thought of walking made him want to throw up.

"Come on, kid. Don't make me put the Iron Man suit on you." Tony thought through his options. He had parked where MJ had indicated so they didn't have far to go. "MJ, where are your backpacks?"

"Lockers."

"Can you get there and get back?" The 'without getting stopped' was implied. He was sure the chaos that was in front of the school was minor compared to what was happening in the gym. "Are your parents on the way?"

"I can get there and back. Both of them are working so I'm stuck until dismissal."

"Get both of your bags, I'll take you with me." He waited for MJ to nod and move toward the door. Looking back at Peter he worked on a plan to get him out without having to carry him. The suit wasn't a bad option but he was pretty sure Pete wouldn't be able to walk and firing the boot jets in the school might be a problem. "Here's what we're going to do. The door is 20 yards away. You've got 8 steps down and the car is there. Once you're in the car I'll get your mask on and it can block sound and light." He had a pretty good idea what had happened based on what MJ had told him. When his spidey sense triggered the rest of his senses heightened to what Tony had started calling his battle senses. He would have been able to smell the sulfur without them. With them, it would have been overwhelming. Add in the sound and overwhelmed was exactly what happened. They had tweaked the mask a couple times aver the last year to adjust for the sensory input and had it where Tony knew it would allow Peter to get his senses under control.

MJ opened the door and slid back into the classroom. Her backpack securely on her own back she had Peter's slung over her shoulder.

Tony took Peter's bag from MJ and pulled out the mask. Stuffing it in his pocket he zipped up the backpack and threw it over a shoulder. "MJ is going to take your right side, I'm going to take your left side." He nodded to MJ and they both pulled his arms up and around their shoulders, ignoring the grunts of pain. Tony was pretty sure they carried Peter most of the way to the car. Opening the door he slid into the back seat and pulled Peter with him. Grabbing the mask he worked it over Peter's head. "MJ, drivers seat. FRIDAY will drive but it'll freak people out if they don't see anyone in the drivers seat."

MJ got in, unsure of what to do. Apparently nothing because as soon as the door shut, the car pulled away from the curve.

"MJ, please fasten your seatbelt." FRIDAY reminded MJ who had twisted around in the seat to see how Peter was doing. The mask was on, the normally white eyes were completely black. Mr. Stark was gently adjusting Peter's head on his lap. Once convinced Peter was as comfortable as he could be, he looked at his watch, checking Peter's vitals. Only focused on Peter, he was oblivious to everything else around him. MJ turned back around and realized that her opinion of Tony Stark completely changed in that moment. She fastened her seatbelt. She had been working under the assumption that Tony Stark was the self obsessed billionaire whose interest in Peter was limited to what Peter could do for him. She realized how wrong she had been.


	19. After Effects

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Bonus Early Posting for Darth_Nuisha! I’ll post the final orphan chapter later today. Next story starts tomorrow morning. ******

Peter woke up in his familiar bed. It took him a moment to realize what FRIDAY had done to his room. It was completely black and there was zero ambient sound. Even with the Sleeping Baby Protocol he could pick up a few stray sounds and there was always a touch of light he could see. Right now there was nothing and it felt wonderful. His head didn't feel too terrible but his muscles ached. He had a vague memory of Mr. Stark coming to get him at school but beyond that there wasn't much. 

Sitting up, he tested the position to make sure his head wouldn't start pounding. "FRIDAY, lights up 5%." Light hit his eyes. Letting them adjust he looked around his room. He was in pajama pants and a t-shirt which meant that Mr. Stark had changed his clothes. Great. On one hand he was immensely grateful. His pajama pants were a lot more comfortable than jeans and the fabric didn't make his skin hurt like the jeans had earlier. On the other hand, Iron Man had changed his clothes. He grimaced at the thought as he looked over at his nightstand and saw a protein bar, bottle of gatorade, and a banana. Grabbing the banana he finished it in two bites and chased it with half of the Gatorade. Opening the protein bar he ate that in two bites too, then finished the Gatorade. "FRIDAY, what time is it?"

"8:15 am. You have been asleep for 20 hours and 19 minutes."

Peter frowned. He had slept for 20 hours. Straight. Shaking his head to clear the grogginess he headed for the bathroom. A hot shower was exactly what he wanted right now.

XXXXXXXXXX

Peter walked down the hall shaking his still wet hair and froze when he heard voices. Not just any voices. Female voices. Specifically Pepper, Natasha, and MJ. Together. Talking. All of his worlds colliding in one terrifying moment. The only thing missing was May. He heard someone behind him, heard the heartbeat and knew it was Mr. Stark.

"How are you feeling?" Tony paused next to Peter trying to figure out why he had stopped in the hallway.

"Better." Peter stayed frozen in place.

"Ok, why are you in the hallway?" Tony was starting to get concerned. For someone who was constantly moving, Peter was currently unnaturally still. He heard Natasha's voice. "Good. They're up. They'll be happy to know you're awake and fully functioning." When Peter didn't move, Tony moved in front of him so he could see his eyes. He didn't think there would be many lingering effects but this was the first time he had seen Peter affected this badly. "Seriously kid, you're starting to worry me. You are fully functioning, right?"

Peter shifted his gaze and locked eyes with Mr. Stark. "Pepper, Natasha, and MJ are together."

Tony laughed when he realized what was wrong. "Why are you freaking out. Pepper and MJ have spent time together and you said MJ met Nat when she picked you up at school."

"I'm not freaking out. It's just that those three are quite possibly the most intimidating people I know. And they're together." Peter knew he wasn't freaking out. It was so much worse than that.

Tony grabbed his shoulder and steered him down the hall to the kitchen. "It's a good thing they all like you then."

Pepper stood up and walked over when she saw Peter. Scrutinizing his face she asked "How are you feeling?"

Peter gave a small smile. "Better, thanks." He looked over at the other two who were watching him. "I am. Really."

Natasha pushed herself off the counter top she was leaning on. "Good. Steve and Barnes have both dealt with sensory overload so if you need anyone to bounce coping ideas off of they're a good option."

Tony could have kissed Natasha. He knew from experience with Peter that he saw anything like what had happened as weakness on his part which was ridiculous. The look on Peter's face when Natasha made the simple statement that Steve and Barnes both had sensory issues was astonishing. Tony could have said the same thing and Peter would have doubted it. He filed it away for future use.

Peter sat down on the stool next to MJ. He glanced over at her and realized she was wearing one of his T-shirts and a pair of leggings that looked like they might be Natasha's. He leaned over and picked up a piece of her toast and took a bite. "Ok. Not that I'm not happy to see you but why are you here at 9am and not at school?"

MJ laughed, "They're still cleaning up after the accident in the Chemistry lab so no school today. When Mr. Stark found out my parents were working late yesterday and all of today Pepper called and asked if I could just stay up here. So...here I am. And, FRIDAY checked us both out so neither one of us will get in trouble for leaving.” It was nice to have an AI able to hack into the school’s system and change files. She filed it away for future use. Neither one of them would ever think about it for grades, nor did they need to, but it was still nice to have it available.

Peter picked up a mug of hot chocolate that appeared in front of him and took a sip. He glanced up at Natasha and found her staring at him as if trying to figure out where a piece should go in a puzzle. "Is the rest of the team here?"

Natasha shook her head, "Steve, Barnes, Sam, Vision, and Wanda are out. Clint went home to visit his family." She was starting to understand that the idea that Peter didn't know what his girlfriend did at the Avenger compound for 20 hours while he was asleep was bothering him. At least that's what she thought it was. "MJ hung out with me most of yesterday. Then Pepper got home from the West Coast and we decided to keep her here overnight and today and the two of you could go back together tonight."

Peter glanced down as Mr. Stark put a plate of eggs, bacon, and toast in front of him. He realized he was starving. Finishing the plate and knowing that it was going to be refilled he smiled at Mr. Stark. "Thanks Mr. Stark."

"Twenty hours without eating is way too long. But Dr. Cho thought you'd be better off sleeping." Tony slid a pan full of scrambled eggs on the plate.

"I thought Dr. Cho was in France all week?" He really hoped Mr. Stark hadn't dragged her back from a conference just for this. It was bad enough that Mr. Stark and Nat knew. Before his brain could continue down the path of how many people potentially knew, Mr. Stark caught his eye with a look that said he knew where his brain was headed.

"She's still in France. We just called her to make sure there wasn't anything else we needed to do." Tony leaned over on the counter and looked at Peter. He hated that Peter felt like he was an inconvenience. And that he didn't want anyone to see anything that he conceived as a weakness. It drove Tony crazy. He felt like they'd made progress but right now it felt like they were two steps back.

Peter stared down at his plate and took a bite. Relieved that Mr. Stark hadn't made Dr. Cho leave her conference he focused on his food. Mechanically finishing his plate he put the fork down. Before he could pickup everything to put it in the dishwasher, Mr. Stark grabbed it.

"Pepper and I have a conference call. Will you two be ok by yourselves?

Peter looked over at MJ who had picked up her own coffee mug and was following Mr. Stark into the kitchen. "We'll be fine."

"Do me a favor and take it easy. Watch a movie or show her around the compound. I think there are a few areas Natasha didn't show her yesterday." Tony caught Peter's eye and conveyed what he hoped Peter understood as the unspoken warning of ‘don't do anything stupid’.

Peter nodded and looked at MJ. "What do you want to do?"

"A movie sounds good."

Peter sank into the corner of the couch while MJ flipped through the movie options. Settling on one, she turned to look at Peter before starting it. "Why do you still call him Mr. Stark?"

Peter shrugged. He asked himself that same question repeatedly. The man had certainly made it clear that he wanted him to call him Tony but almost every time it came out as Mr. Stark. Deep down he knew why. He just didn't want to deal with it. "MJ, can we just watch the movie?


	20. The Visit

Peter sprinted the distance to the hidden door on the roof of the safe house. He hadn't planned on coming to the safe house today but he also hadn’t bothered checking the weather before he left. It was looking decidedly overcast and was definitely a little gusty. Rain had started falling about 30 seconds before he reached the roof so he didn't get too wet. But, he was also on the other side of Queens from where he needed to be. He started running through the different options he had. He could change, take the subway, then change again. Yeah, that was going to suck.

He walked through the door into the common area, expecting an empty room. Instead, Bucky and Natasha were sitting on the floor, security camera equipment scattered in front of them.

"Hey kid." Bucky said, looking up from a camera assembly.

"What are you doing?" Peter asked, confusion apparent on his face.

"Upgrading the cameras. And adding some." Natasha leaned back looking at the equipment in front of her.

"Hey." Bucky stared at Peter. "You're sticky."

"Yeah...". Peter couldn't tell where Bucky was going with the comment.

Bucky looked over at Natasha. "He can put them up."

Natasha grinned. "You don't want me standing on your shoulders?"

"I would love to help, but I have to be somewhere." Peter backed away, he didn't have time to get roped into putting up cameras.

"Peter, it's raining. You hate swinging in the rain." Natasha pulled her knees up and wrapped her arms around them, studying Peter. He normally jumped at the chance to help anyone out.

"Yeah, I know. Which is why I'm here. I'm going to have to change and take the subway across town."

"How long will it take you to do whatever it is that you need to do?" Bucky stood up and faced Peter.

Peter narrowed his eyes. "Two hours."

Bucky looked back down at Natasha. "I'll drive him. By the time he's done, you'll have them programmed and Sam and Steve will be here with the rest of the equipment."

Natasha looked at Bucky. She might be getting the worst part of the deal, but she'd let him get away with it for now. "Fine. Two hours."

Bucky grabbed his keys. "Let's go."

XXXXXXXXXX

"Parker, where are we going?" Bucky was getting increasingly frustrated with Peter. He wouldn't just tell him where they were going.

"Just take the next left and pull into the parking deck." Peter pulled his mask down. Bucky's windows were tinted enough that he thought that the chance of someone seeing him was slim but they were almost there.

Bucky growled at Peter but followed the directions. Karen apparently had access because she activated the gate arm to let them in. Pulling into a space, he looked over at his passenger. "This is a hospital."

"Yeah, I know." Peter opened the door and slid out. "Are you coming?"

Bucky sighed but got out of the truck and followed Peter into an elevator.

XXXXXXXXXX

The elevator doors opened and Peter walked off, leaving Bucky to follow in his wake. A nurse walked over and hugged Spider-Man. "I wasn't sure if you were going to make it because of the storm."

"I'm not going to miss this. These visits are the highlight of my week!" Remembering that Bucky was standing next to him, he added. "This is my friend Bucky. Bucky, this is Charlotte Hanson. She's a nurse."

Bucky tugged the sleeve down on his left arm before extending his right hand to shake the nurse's hand. "Otherwise known as his driver when it's raining."

Peter left the two by the elevator and headed towards a larger area. Bucky watched him flip into the larger room and heard a chorus of cheers. Charlotte looked over at Bucky, "He is so good with them. It may be the highlight of his week but his visits give these kids a moment where they're the center of a superhero's world. And it makes what they're going through easier."

Bucky stared down the hall towards the room Peter had disappeared in to. This was the absolutely last thing he thought Peter would be doing on a Saturday morning. Strike that, it wasn't even a thought. But, now that he was here and listening to a bunch of kids cheering for Spider-Man, of course this is what the kid would do on a Saturday morning. He gave a half smile to Charlotte and walked down the hall. Standing in the back of the room he watched Peter interact with kids in wheelchairs, hooked up to IVs, bandages covering various parts of their small bodies. Peter was so good with every single one of them. Talking to them. Not just smiling and performing but actually asking how they were doing and giving them words of encouragement. Bucky without a doubt completely understood what Stark meant when he said that Peter could be so much better than the rest of them. He had thought it was just the pride Stark felt for the kid. He would be the first to admit he didn't understand their relationship. Peter wasn't just an intern and Stark definitely wasn't just a mentor. If someone didn't know them it would be very easy to think that they were father and son. Lost in thought he almost missed the voice next to him.

"What up."

The voice belonged to a kid that Bucky guessed to be around 9 or 10. A kid that exuded an 'I'm going to kick your ass if you mess with me' attitude. A kid that was also missing the lower part of his arm. And it looked fairly recent. Bucky nodded. "What up yourself."

"So do you do flips too?"

Bucky laughed. "No. Spider-Man does enough flips for both of us." He turned to look at the kid and noticed his eyes dart toward the metal hand sticking out of his sleeve.

"Cool hand. Think they can make me one?"

Bucky smiled and pushed up his sleeve. "It's more than just a hand." The comment elicited a smile from the kid.

"How'd you lose it?"

"Fell from a train in the Alps. How'd you lose yours?"

"Car accident."

They fell into mutual silence until Bucky noticed the kid looking at him again. Bucky found himself unconsciously crouching next to the kid, getting more on his eye level.

"Do you still sometimes feel your arm?" The kid looked at Bucky, unsure if he should be asking the question.

"I lost it a long time ago, so I've had a long time to get used to it. But, yes, I still feel like it's there sometimes when I don't have the prosthetic on." Bucky sat down on the floor with his back against the wall and nodded for the kid to join him. “I’m Bucky. What’s your name?”

The boy sat down facing him. “Jaylen.” He paused and looked at Bucky’s arm again. "Did people make fun of you because you didn't have an arm?"

Bucky pondered the question. He was 200% sure saying that the majority of the world feared him and that no, no one made fun of him was not going to be helpful. But, it had been a long time since he had dealt with a kid's anxiety over being different. "Some people will always make fun of other people because they're different. It sucks, but all you can do is remind yourself that your happiness isn't dependent on other people." He paused before continuing. "When I was your age, my best friend was this scrawny little kid that got picked on and beat up all the time. He never knew how to walk away from a fight. But he wasn't fighting them to make himself feel better or because they hurt his feelings. He did it because he didn't like to see anyone picked on and he knew if they were doing it to him, they were doing it to others too. I'm not saying to get into fights over it, but don't let people make you think you're different or less than them, just because of this." He pointed at the kid's arm. "Because you're not."

The kid smiled and looked back over at the group of kids surrounding Spider-Man watching him flip and walk on the ceiling.

XXXXXXXXXX

Bucky was silent most of the drive back to the safe house. It wasn't until they pulled into the underground parking that he spoke. "How often do you do this?"

Peter shrugged. "When I'm in the city on the weekends. So maybe twice a month. Thanks for driving me. I know it's not how you wanted to spend your Saturday morning."

Bucky shook his head. "Actually, I was wondering if I could go back with you sometime."

Surprised, Peter looked at Bucky. "Really?"

"Yeah." Bucky parked in the space next to Sam's truck and looked at Peter. "I've done some horrible things." He put his hand up to stop Peter from interrupting. "I may have been forced into it but I remember all of it. This...this was something good. That kid I was talking to saw someone who was like him." He looked down at the metal hand gripping the wheel. "He saw that it wasn't the end of his world."

XXXXXXXXXX

Bucky pulled into the same parking space at the hospital a week later. He knew if he sat too long he would turn around and leave so he got out of the car and mechanically followed the same path he and Peter had taken the week before. When the elevator opened on the same floor, he saw the same nurse.

Charlotte walked out from behind the desk. “Bucky, right?” She smiled as he nodded. For someone so large, she thought he looked like a lost puppy. “I didn’t think I’d see you back here without Spider-Man.”

Bucky forced a smile. “There was a boy I talked to when I was here last week. Jaylen. Is he still here?” Bucky knew he was still here. He had already checked. He had also pulled a few strings and made sure he got a good prosthetic, which should have been fitted yesterday. He just didn’t think the nurse needed to know that he knew. 

Charlotte nodded. “He’s in room 412.” She paused, realizing Bucky needed a little bit of prodding. “It’s ok if you go see him. It’s down the hall to the left.”

Bucky nodded and walked down the hall. He probably didn’t need to tell her that he already knew where the room was. Old habits die hard, even when the person that formed the habits was dead. His feet carried him on autopilot to the room and he pushed the door open.

“Bucky! Dad, that’s the guy I was telling you about!”

Bucky froze in the doorway. He had not expected Jaylen to have visitors. Both of his parents worked full time jobs which meant there were only a few times they could visit normally. Before he could retreat, the man crossed the room. “Jaylen told me about the man who visited with Spider-Man last week. You made quite an impression.”

“I don’t want to intrude, I’ll come back later.” Bucky backed out of the room and turned to leave.

“I know who you are.”

Bucky froze. It was bound to happen. His face had been plastered all over the news when he was a fugitive. He stiffened and turned around. Running had never been his style. “I won’t...”

The man cut him off. “My grandfather was one of the prisoners that escaped from Kreischberg with you and Captain America. I grew up hearing stories about the Howling Commandos. I know who you are.” The man emphasized the word ‘you’. He nodded back to the room. “And he knows you as the man that made him feel normal. He’d love to spend more time with you.”

XXXXXXXXXX

Bucky stared at the floor as he walked back down the hall towards the elevator. He had spent the last hour with Jaylen and his father. The boy was a firecracker. Jaylen had been slightly disappointed that he didn’t have a metal arm like Bucky’s but his dad kept trying to reassure him that it wasn’t practical. They talked about school and sports. Jaylen was nervous about both. He was going to be discharged early next week which meant he’d be back in school after Spring Break. Bucky had found himself offering to come talk to his class. The words had come out of his mouth before he realized what he was doing. But it felt good.

“How was your visit?”

Bucky looked up and saw the same nurse leaning against the desk. “Good.”

“I just got off. Do you want to go grab a drink?” There’s a place across the street...”. Charlotte watched Bucky process what she had said. She had researched him after he had shown up with Spider-Man. All of the articles that came up first were about an assassin. That didn’t correlate with the fact that Spider-Man was friends with him. Then she had come across the newest article, put out by the PR department at Stark Industries. That article told her all she needed to know about James Buchanan Barnes. That article did correlate with the fact that he was was friends with Spider-Man. That article made her want to get to know him a little bit better.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Coming up next...
> 
> **Somewhere I Belong**
> 
> _You know, everyone has always asked me why I call you Mr. Stark. Why I don't call you Tony." Peter paused, trying to work up to what he wanted to say. "If I call you Tony...". Peter's voice caught a little bit, "If I call you Tony it means that you're more than just my mentor. And if you're more than just my mentor...". Peter wiped a stray tear from his cheek. "I don't think I could handle losing you. It would break me. So you've stayed Mr. Stark." Peter sucked in a breath and almost laughed, "But, it turns out I'm already broken."_


End file.
